Financial services to drive mobile authentication, report claims

Posted by Jessie Richards

Use of mobile technology in the financial services sector is likely to drive growth of mobile phone-based authentication products and services, IT outsourcing users have heard.

A new report from Goode Intelligence predicted that there will be just under three million users of mobile authentication products in the sector by the end of 2010, but this is expected to grow to more than 20 million by 2014.

The research explained that the financial services industry will need to invest in the technology to fulfil requirements to fight unauthorised access and identity theft.

In addition, the technology will allow firms to reduce their operational costs, as well as easily verify transactions for mobile banking services.

Report author Alan Goode, founder of Goode Intelligence, told IT outsourcing users: "The mobile phone can be used to provide strong two-factor authentication into all financial channels, including physical and virtual, and also provides an excellent method to verify financial transactions including payments."

Last week, research by Datanomic claimed that the financial services industry will need to place more focus of data validation processes in the coming years.