More secure Internet Banking

"A recent survey of nearly 1700 customers in eight countries found that the majority of account-holders - 82% - want banks and brokerages to monitor online and telephone banking transactions for suspicious activity - similar to the way that credit card transactions are monitored.

Furthermore, a masssive 91% are willing use a new authentication method, beyond the standard username-and-password procedure, if their banks decided to offer stronger security. Over two third of respondents (69%) say banks should replace the standard username-and-password log-in procedure with stronger authentication."

This is very encouring and shows an awareness in consumers that Internet banking is not as secure as they would like , but more important that they would be happy to use a more secure mechanism for Internet banking. Of course, the challenge for banks is how to do this effectively. The only way to really increase security is to distribute "something" to the client: either a random number generator, or a once use password booklet, or a digital certificate stored on something... and this is going to be a costly exercise.

The most obvious way to distribute a secure digital certificate is by means of mobile phone distribution channels. The SIM card in GSM phones is an ideal vehicle to distribute digital certificates. As a matter of fact these certificates have already been distributed in many markets.

The Fundamo mobile payment technology has been designed to make use of these digital certificates, not just to increase the security of mobile banking, but also Internet banking.