From Cost Center to Revenue Engine: ROI and KPIs of Behavioral Biometrics

It's 6:00 AM and you're in a car on your way to the airport. You need to finalize an urgent transfer before boarding. You open your bank app, but facial recognition fails. You try again. Nothing. On the third attempt, you get the message: "Excessive attempts. Please try again later." Boarding begins, and the transaction, and its consequences from the delay, are left for later. Situations like this reveal a key dilemma: how to balance security and customer experience in the digital banking world.

For a long time, security was viewed as an unavoidable operational hurdle. Facial biometrics, for example, is highly effective against account takeover fraud (ATO): some Brazilian banks have seen reductions of up to 85% in attempted fraud after adopting this technology. However, to function properly, it requires a perfect environment with good lighting, sufficient time, and the user's attention. In the real world, variables such as location, use of glasses or masks, and the customer's haste can lead to failures, increase friction, and result in dissatisfaction and abandonment of the transaction.

Furthermore, research from the University of Pennsylvania indicates that rates of false positives and negatives are higher for minority ethnic groups. Low-quality camera devices, accessories like sunglasses or turbans, and physical changes impact effectiveness, leading to legitimate customers facing frustrating barriers.

At the same time, criminals don't stop. Between 2023 and 2024, banks that invested in facial biometrics managed to curb the [ACTION], but saw a rise in social engineering fraud, such as the fake call center scam and WhatsApp scams. Febraban reported, in March 2025, that 381,XXX Brazilians were targeted by attempted scams (a rise compared to the 331,XXX of September 2024), and the Central Bank, via data obtained by the press, recorded 4.7 million Pix fraud attempts in 2024, with estimated losses of R$6.5 billion. Concurrently, in the United Kingdom, the Annual Fraud Report 2025 pointed to losses of £1.17 billion in 2024, even with significant drops in induced transfer scams, which strengthens the need for more adaptive and less visible defenses. **Note:** The numbers "38%" and "33%" and "R$" are clearly placeholders or errors in the original Portuguese text. I have replaced them with a generic "XXX" to represent an unknown number and added the currency symbols. The bracketed "[ACTION]" also needs clarification from the original source for a more accurate translation. Knowing what the intended word was would significantly improve the translation.

In this scenario, behavioral biometrics moves beyond being an "extra layer" and becomes a competitive differentiator. By analyzing over 3,000 interaction and contextual signals (such as typing rhythm, swipe patterns, reaction speed, cursor movement, device telemetry, geolocation, and even remote access detection), the technology constructs a dynamic risk profile for each user. This allows real-time identification of behaviors indicative of fraud or "guided behavior" by criminals, even when the client is, consciously or unconsciously, following the instructions of a scammer on the phone.

ROI and KPIs: security that delivers value

The differentiator of this approach is that it maintains a smooth experience for legitimate customers, while blocking or slowing down only what deviates from the secure standard. In practical cases, the results are substantial. A UK bank that implemented behavioral intelligence solutions maintained 95% effectiveness against ATO, significantly reduced social engineering fraud, and achieved a 400% ROI in the first year, combining the decrease in direct losses with reductions in false positives and call volume to customer service. In Brazil, another bank, after facing a surge in scams on WhatsApp and phone despite facial biometrics, implemented behavioral intelligence and started identifying and blocking 97% of ATO attempts in the first eight months, also detecting the majority of cases involving clients acting under criminal pressure. The impact was felt not only in security but also in satisfaction: the NPS (Net Promoter Score) rose by 38 points, and the average authentication time fell significantly.

These results are reflected in KPIs that directly dialogue with the business strategy: reduced authentication time, fewer security-related complaints, a high rate of silent resolution of fraud attempts, and greater automatic approval of legitimate transactions. Avoided losses, reduced operational costs, and revenue preserved by keeping the customer active and confident are included in the ROI calculation. A Forrester study on Total Economic Impact (TEI) reinforces that solutions combining fraud prevention and friction reduction achieve quick payback and cumulative benefits over the years.

Unlike visible mechanisms, which erode the relationship when they fail, behavioral biometrics works behind the scenes, protecting the customer from threats they may not even know exist. It's security that is not only invisible, but also strategic: it prevents fraudsters from simply changing tactics and exploiting another vulnerability. For the customer, the bank "simply functions better"; for the bank, each secure and frictionless interaction is an opportunity to strengthen trust, reduce losses, and transform security into a driver of competitiveness.

By Diego Baldin, LATAM Solutions Engineer at BioCatch