The leading Russian banking institution intends to acquire a company which deals with speech recognition, Reuters reports.
Sberbank will have to pay RUR 5 bln ($77 mio) for Speech Technology Center to a subsidiary of Gazprombank. The purchase will enable Russia’s largest bank develop a biometric platform comparable to the Integrated Biometric System (IBS) of the Russian Central Bank. In addition to speech recognition, Speech Technology Center is involved with face biometrics. The deal between Sberbank and Gazprombank may be closed by the end of the year.
Sberbank headed by Herman Gref, has already implemented STC’s products. Last year, it launched a customer voice identification project. Sberbank has also bought a 25% stake in VisionLabs which develops innovative face recognition technologies.
Gref has been actively implementing innovations in his bank and in the national economy in general. He intends to move it ‘from 2D to 3D’ and besides thinks of replacing thousands of the bank’s employees with robots.