Banking leaders fear strength of identity authentication

Over three-quarters of banking and FinTech executives are concerned about strength of current identity authentication methods, according to a study from authID.ai.

The report claims that one-third of respondents are highly concerned about the risks associated with one-time passwords (OTP) and knowledge-based authentication (KBA). The fears stem from risks with the seizure of SMS pin codes by cyber criminals or easy-to-guess authentication prompts. The figure increases to 80% when including those “moderately” concerned.

Another area of significant worry is the dissatisfaction of customers with OTP and KBA questions. Those to state they were “highly concerned” amounted to a third of respondents, but this figure increases to 75% when including those with moderate fear, it said.

As a result of such high anxiety, 84% expect their enterprise will increase their investment into IT security over the next 12 months.

Some of the other notable stats include that identity verification is most commonly completed through OTPs, with it accounting for 36% of instances. It is also used in tandem with other identity verification services, for example, 29% of processes leverage a blend of OTP and KBA.

authID.ai CEO Tom Thimot said, “FinTechs, banks, and credit unions are deeply concerned around not only the risks associated with one- time passwords and knowledge-based authentication, but also about customer abandonment due to the friction associated with these legacy authentication solutions.

“Cloud-based biometric identity authentication facilitates seamless transactions between customers and businesses of all sizes and industries, while protecting customers’ data, transactions, and online accounts from fraud and other cyber risks.”

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