Case Study: Bank Leumi achieves faster, more secure contact-center authentication with Nuance Communications' FreeSpeech and VocalPassword

Bank Leumi transforms authentication

Bank Leumi, one of Israel’s largest banks (including its First Direct and LeumiCall contact centers), faced slow, manual authentication that added roughly 20–30 seconds per call, frustrated customers, and left the bank vulnerable to impersonation. To strengthen security, speed up service and improve customer experience, Bank Leumi engaged Nuance Communications to test and deploy voice-biometric solutions (Nuance FreeSpeech and Nuance VocalPassword).

Nuance Communications implemented FreeSpeech background voice verification across Bank Leumi’s contact centers (including a VoIP deployment and a 350-seat LeumiCall site) and piloted VocalPassword for eBanking password resets. The pilot enrolled nearly 10,000 customers and completed about 2,000 password resets in three months, eliminated intrusive verification questions, reduced average call duration, improved security with real-time watch‑list alerts, and positioned the bank to scale voice authentication across all inbound calls—delivering clear gains in convenience, security and contact-center efficiency.

Bank Leumi

Amit Lanshiano

IT Operations Manager