Cellular banking gains popularity

More people are expected to manage their money through their mobile phone than through the Internet within five years, a think-tank has predicted, writes Wales Online.

The use of mobile banking looks set to have a faster take-up rate than online banking or even the use of cash machines and credit cards, according to mobile phone banking group Monilink.

The speed at which people adopt the new technology is likely to be accelerated by the current economic downturn.

Bankers and technology vendors are rethinking their approach to delivering financial services through mobile phones, reports American Banker.

The early thinking focused on creating a single application with many capabilities, much like an online banking site that can be accessed through a phone.

With more smartphones and operating systems coming to market, a growing number of customised applications for specific tasks, from making payments to finding an automated teller machine, is being developed. As a result, mobile banking technology is starting to look less like a Swiss army knife and more like a ring of keys storing a variety of functions.

HSBC has deployed a new authentication system to protect online and remote transactions from fraud, says IT News Australia.

Using the system provided by Authentify, the authentication process is isolated from the Web, and user or transaction details must be entered via a telephone call synchronised to online sessions, making it more difficult for criminals to hack into accounts.

The system claims to offer the highest security with the most convenience as opposed to two-factor authentication, whereby devices give customers automatically-generated one-time passwords to use in conjunction with the password they already know.