Biometric Authentication: Revolutionising T&E Security
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Today’s digital environment is becoming increasingly insufficient for traditional authentication methods, such as complex passwords and static PINs. These credentials can be easily stolen, shared, or compromised, putting whole organisations at risk of unauthorised access and data breaches. As cyberattacks grow more sophisticated, relying solely on traditional methods poses a clear threat to financial integrity.
Here comes biometric authentication into effect: a secure, user-friendly alternative that verifies identity through physical and behavioural traits such as facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, and typing patterns. Biometric systems offer significant advantages, including stronger defence against unauthorised access, reduced reliance on vulnerable passwords, and a seamless employee experience. These advancements are gaining widespread adoption due to their ability to enhance security systems without sacrificing usability.
Combined with artificial intelligence (AI), biometric technology becomes even more powerful, enabling continuous background verification or detection of suspicious behavioural patterns. It also adjusts authentication levels based on real-time risk. Artificial intelligence-powered biometrics provide a future-ready solution that considers both technical requirements and privacy concerns. Financial leaders should strive to strike a balance between operational efficiency and strong security measures as cybercriminal tactics become more difficult to detect.
Why T&E security needs an upgrade
Complex passwords, static PINs or other traditional authentication methods are increasingly inadequate in today’s digital environment. These credentials can be easily stolen, shared, or compromised, putting whole organisations at risk of unauthorised access and data breaches. As cyberattacks grow more sophisticated, relying solely on traditional methods poses a clear threat to financial integrity.
This is particularly problematic in T&E processes, where finance teams face a rise in fraudulent activity. From duplicate claims and inflated receipts to manipulating approval workflows, the misuse of T&E platforms is becoming harder to detect. Without intelligent security systems, finance teams are left to manually comb through transactions—an inefficient approach that often misses critical red flags.
Adding to this complexity is the rise of mobile and hybrid work. Employees now use smartphones, laptops, and cloud-based apps to track expenses across geographies. While this flexibility supports productivity, it increases the risk of unauthorised access and credential misuse. It also raises new privacy concerns, especially when employees handle personal data and company funds outside traditional corporate networks.
In these situations, biometric authentication made better by AI is invaluable. AI-powered solutions provide a dynamic, high-integrity safeguard by verifying a user’s identity through biometric data and behavioural traits and applying security measures that adapt to context. This method guarantees that only the appropriate individual can approve high-value transactions or submit expenses, all while promoting a compliant and efficient user experience.
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What is biometric authentication?
You may remember the science-fiction movies where retina scans unlock a secret door. This is what biometric authentication is: a security process that verifies an individual’s identity based on their unique biological and behavioural traits. As traditional authentication methods, such as PINs or even complex passwords, are static and often shared or forgotten, biometric systems rely on something inherently personal. This makes biometric authentication more secure but also significantly more user-friendly.
By comparing real-time biometric data to pre-registered biometric templates, these systems grant or deny access to sensitive systems, data, or processes. When combined with AI, biometric technology becomes even more powerful, enabling continuous verification and adaptive security responses that adjust based on context or risk, offering a much higher level of security than conventional methods.
Different types of biometric authentication:
Fingerprint scanning: Uses biometric sensors to map the unique ridges of a fingerprint for identity verification. Commonly found on smartphones and increasingly integrated into expense management apps for secure logins and approvals.
Facial recognition: Analyses facial features to match a live image with a stored biometric template. It’s commonly used on smartphones with systems like Face ID.
Voice and iris recognition: This technology identifies users based on vocal patterns or the unique structure of the eye. It’s useful for hands-free access or when additional authentication offers are required for high-risk actions.
Behavioural biometrics: Monitors dynamic patterns in how users type, move a mouse, or hold a device. AI uses these subtle behavioural traits for continuous, background verification to detect suspicious activity.
The benefits of biometrics in T&E management
As finance teams modernise their travel and expense workflows, biometric authentication is emerging as a game-changing solution. It enhances expense fraud prevention through artificial intelligence while also improving usability and simplifying compliance efforts.
Stronger security and fraud prevention
Using biometric authentication makes T&E management much safer. These systems guarantee that only authorised employees can submit, approve, or change expense reports, using biometric data to verify the user’s identity.
Combined with AI, biometric technology becomes even more effective in preventing expense fraud. Modern systems analyse behavioural traits and usage patterns to detect anomalies, flagging suspicious activity such as spoofing attempts or unauthorised access in real time. This proactive approach protects sensitive information and reduces the risk of insider threats or credential misuse.
Seamless user experience
One of the most compelling advantages of biometric systems is their ability to enhance user experience without compromising on security. Employees can log in to apps using facial recognition systems or a fingerprint scan, eliminating the need to remember complex passwords or carry physical tokens.
For employees constantly on the go or in remote locations, biometric authentication provides a seamless, user-friendly experience. The widespread adoption of biometric sensors and smartphones has significantly reduced the rapid, intuitive, and secure access to T&E platforms, resulting in a significant reduction in login delays and access issues.
Compliance and audit readiness
Ensuring policy compliance and maintaining a clean financial audit trail are critical responsibilities for finance leaders. Biometric authentication supports these goals by tightly linking user actions to verified identities, minimising the chances of unauthorised claims or approvals slipping through.
AI-enhanced biometric systems can provide continuous, background verification and generate real-time alerts for policy violations. This simplifies internal audits and strengthens compliance frameworks across multi-entity organisations. Tying every approval, edit, or submission back to a verified individual improves transparency, accountability, and regulatory readiness.
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How AI and biometrics work together
Combining biometric authentication and artificial intelligence redefines secure, intelligent access in modern T&E management. While biometric systems provide a safe method of verifying a user’s identity using biometric data such as fingerprints, facial features, or voice patterns, the addition of AI makes these systems truly adaptive, proactive, and resilient to fraud.
AI strengthens biometrics by:
Detecting suspicious behavioural patterns: AI enhances biometric systems by learning how individual users typically behave. By analysing behavioural traits, such as typing speed, device handling, or navigation habits, AI can detect anomalies that may signal fraudulent activity or unauthorised access. These behavioural biometrics offer a silent, continuous form of background verification that makes it far more difficult for cybercriminals to spoof a user’s identity or manipulate the system undetected.
Powering adaptive authentication levels based on risk: AI enables biometric authentication systems to respond intelligently to different risk scenarios. For example, logging in from a familiar device and location might only require facial recognition, whereas accessing high-value financial data from an unfamiliar IP address may trigger additional layers of verification, such as fingerprint recognition or voice authentication.
Enabling continuous, background verification: Unlike conventional authentication methods, which only verify identity at login, AI-powered biometric systems provide ongoing verification in the background. These systems lower the possibility of unauthorised access or session hijacking by continuously monitoring biometric and behavioural data to guarantee that the authorised user maintains control throughout the session.
Ultimately, integrating artificial intelligence and biometric technology ensures that only the right person can take critical actions, whether submitting a claim, approving an expense, or accessing sensitive company data. AI verifies that the user’s identity is genuine and consistent with past behaviour, flagging any attempt to bypass authentication or exploit system vulnerabilities.
How Yokoy enhances T&E security
In a landscape of rising data breaches and financial fraud, platforms like Yokoy are setting new travel and expense security standards by leveraging advanced technology, particularly biometric authentication and AI.
Secure expense submission and approvals
Yokoy provides mobile-first, secure expense management that allows employees to submit and approve claims on the go, including corporate card payments, without compromising data integrity. By using biometric authentication methods, such as fingerprint recognition or facial recognition, on smartphones, the platform ensures that only the verified user can take action. This reduces reliance on traditional passwords and eliminates the risk of unauthorised access to sensitive financial workflows.
AI-powered fraud prevention
The platform’s artificial intelligence engine plays a critical role in fraud detection. It continuously analyses biometric data and behavioural traits to flag duplicate claims, altered receipts, or out-of-policy spending. By detecting suspicious behavioural patterns in real time, the AI acts as a second layer of fraud prevention, going beyond basic policy checks to uncover hidden anomalies that human reviewers may overlook.
Biometric login systems
Yokoy combines multi-factor authentication (MFA) with biometric verification to deliver robust protection, making unauthorised access highly unlikely. Yokoy’s apps have these advanced security features built right in. They help lower the risk of identity theft, account takeovers, and other bad things happening. This approach enhances user experience by enabling seamless, user-friendly access and improves cybersecurity by reducing vulnerabilities linked to complex passwords or credential sharing.
Real-time alerts
In addition, Yokoy provides real-time alerts for suspicious claims, irregular approvals, and high-risk transactions to support compliance and accountability. Yokoy’s AI-powered anomaly detection triggers these alerts, enabling finance teams to act quickly, ensuring immediate responses to potential threats and further enhancing overall security.
Next steps
Maybe you want to know how biometric authentication and AI can transform your business and T&E security?
Book a demo today and discover how to protect your business against fraud while streamlining expense management across teams and entities.
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