South African consumers are becoming increasingly dependent on their mobile devices for daily banking activities. As such, there is pressure on financial service providers to adapt quickly to a mobile-first environment. Looming large among the challenges that these providers will face in transitioning to mobile is the issue of security, particularly given the growing sophistication of phishing attacks and fraud. But investing in a mobile security solution need not be a grudge purchase. The right security architecture can also be a powerful enabler – an important step towards differentiating your financial service brand.
What are the options?
Regulators across the globe are calling for greater protection for consumers who transact digitally. In the past few years, authentication has been a key regulatory focus, and one of the ongoing debates is over the relative benefits of multi-factor authentication (MFA) versus risk-based authentication (RBA).
Often viewed as a more user-friendly alternative to MFA, RBA is a non-static authentication system that takes into account the profile of the user who is requesting access to the system (their location, historical transacting habits, and so forth) to determine the risk associated with a particular transaction. Advances in machine learning are making this approach highly appealing, as is the low input that RBA requires from the end user – but it is not foolproof.
The biggest problem associated with this authentication method is that the assessments it leads to are not always accurate. Recent research by Javelin revealed that nearly a third (30%) of all transactions that are declined due to suspected fraud are believed to in fact be legitimate. This kind of “false decline” affects all parties negatively: the user or shopper experiences frustration; the e-commerce merchant loses business; the financial institution or card issuer potentially loses a customer.
Against the disadvantages of RBA, push authentication is coming to the fore as a more secure and user-friendly approach. Not only does this method protect users against fraud; it also creates a trusted channel through which financial service providers can develop their user experience and deploy new services in future. This is a significant win in a consumer environment characterised by rapid change.
Future-proofing your institution
Given the furious pace of innovation that is now shaping the mobile sphere, financial service providers have to ensure that they are well-positioned to keep up. The best way to achieve this is to invest in a scalable mobile security architecture, created for your institution by a proven industry leader. There are frequently more than a hundred million connections to apps Entersekt secures in certain geographical territories, per month. That’s what a modern architecture helps us achieve with ease.
Establishing a secure channel between your users’ mobile devices and your on-premises servers will ensure that users can do anything you dream up for them to do, without the risk of fraud. The right security vendor will lay the groundwork for a future-proof, secure and mobile-first service offering.
Credit: IT News Africa
