In the midst of a general slowdown in IT-infrastructure spending, a hosted approach to caller authentication is starting to take hold. In a briefing, Paul Watson, GM of Multi-Channel Self Service at Convergys, told Opus Research that the company is prepared to offer either an “on-premises” solutions (building on a stronghold established by Intervoice) or on-demand, much like a Web service, based on the partnership with Trade Harbor. Indeed one of Convergys’ clients is already using the on-demand service and has found the hosted approach to be a good way to accelerate development while minimizing capital expense.

There are strong signals that the market for voice biometric-based authentication services is beginning to stir again after a few chilly quarters. In addition to the financial services vertical, healthcare, credit card payment processing and phone-based commerce loom, once again, as potentially fertile ground for new implementations. And the sleeping giant of government transfer payments is showing signs of growth in a few countries around the world.

Opus Research estimates that spending on commercially available, voice biometric-based authentication and verification solutions will approach $145 million in 2009, reflecting growth in the 15% range, which is double the growth in 2008 over 2007. The increased growth rate can be attributed to greater flexibility exhibited by solutions providers, like Convergys, as well as a greater appreciation by prospective buyers that voice biometrics offers a superior user experience while supporting secure transactions and commerce over the phone.

Our latest findings and market assessment, along with dossiers on the major technology providers, will be included in “Voice Biometric Market Potential Report: 2009-2014,” to be issued this month. It is an update of the well-respected forecast and planning guide issued by Opus Research since 2005.

The partnership puts emphasis on flexibility and speed-to-deploy for applications or services that want to add another factor for user authentication. Voxeo has done an excellent job of constantly adding to the tools and capabilities of its platforms. It attracts new developer/partners by constantly adding new tools, capabilities and APIs (application programming interfaces) to its arsenal.

Even though customer service applications are decidedly multimodal these days (involving the Web, email and even Tweets), more than half of ecommerce culminates in a phone call. During these tough financial times, the need to authenticate callers is more acute than ever. Voxeo’s developer community will find that voice signatures are stronger than a PIN (which can be stolen) and more convenient than the challenge questions that “knowledge-based authentication” schemes insert into the call flow.

Financial service providers, payment processors, telecommunications firms and government agencies have been the first to offer high-volume voice biometric based authentication. We’re looking forward to seeing what the fertile minds of the new generation of phone application developers build the better authentication mousetrap for a broader variety of applications and customer groups.