The combination of online banking’s rising popularity and the increasing number of online services offered by financial organizations indicates a bright future for e-banking. However, to maximize such potential, financial institutions must overcome a major obstacle: identity theft. Identity (ID) theft, particularly phishing, is rapidly spreading worldwide, and straining the mutual trust between financial institutions and their customers that is a prerequisite for secure online banking. With identity theft leading to significant financial losses and decreased customer usage of online banking services, it is one issue that cannot be ignored.

Many financial organizations are looking to implement proactive security measures to combat identity theft. Strong authentication – a security method which employs the use of more than one factor to identify users accessing private networks and applications – is among today’s leading choices. Enabling easy and secure implementation of certificate-based security applications, strong authentication provides banks with the foundation for implementing end-to-end security and a range of secure online services for its customers.