The Dangers of Personalized Service for Huge Clients in Banking

Today, there is a class of customers in banking that get services and offerings vastly different from what is offered to the ordinary consumer. The disparity can feel like the gap between purchasing a ticket with American Airlines and chartering a private jet. Private Banking provides an unprecedented level of service for these clients, assigning their customer relationship to a specific individual intimately familiar with each of the limited number of clients. The practical implications of this are that the banker recognizes each customer's voice in their portfolio. Additionally, they know their customer's e-mail addresses, spouses' names, children's names/ages, anniversary dates, and more. However, because of the familiarity they have, steps like asking security questions may get skipped while the banker thinks to themselves, "Why would I annoy Mike by asking for the last four of his social when I obviously know him by the phone number that called me and the sound of his voice?"

Customers in this class are used to interacting with their bank the way 911 calls are made in works of fiction. They simply call their banker, say "Hi" and then proceed to describe the exact transaction they called to execute; once the intended action is confirmed by their banker, they will say "Thanks," hang up and then move on to the next meeting/call on their calendar, etc.

This arrangement is perfectly susceptible to a simple text-to-speech impersonation of a high-end client; rumors circulate about real-world cases that no institution wants to disclose. But, in fact, the very nature of these clients is that they often have public personas that would provide enough training material to synthesize their voice.

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