- Pete Daffern, Clairmail CEO
This week, Businessweek published a byline article by Clairmail CEO Pete Daffern on mobile banking security and how smartphone technology is reducing the risks. The following is a transcript:
Mobile banking is on the rise, and chances are you’re one of the 52 percent of consumers who have accessed some form of mobile banking in the past six months. Yet perceived security risks remain a hindrance to full adoption of the technology. In truth, accessing your account via your bank’s mobile website or using your bank’s mobile app is as secure, if not more secure, than banking online via PC. Why?
People always know where their phones are: Studies by Morgan Stanley have shown that the average American (91 percent of those surveyed) has his or her cell phone within arm’s reach 24 hours a day. Think about the last time you lost your wallet or credit card. How much time passed before you noticed? Your mobile phone is always on and available.
Your mobile banking “identity” is tied to a specific phone: Done correctly, your mobile “identity” can be linked to a specific device, making traditional “man in the middle” security compromises much less relevant.
Consumers can mitigate fraud in real time: SMS (short message service) and push messages for smartphones allow consumers to help banks monitor for fraudulent transactions as they happen.
Geolocation helps curtail fraud: Smart mobile companies are leveraging the GPS capabilities of smartphones to stop fraud before it happens. If a physical credit card is used hundreds of miles from a
phone’s location, for example, chances are that one or the other has been stolen.
Future biometric-based security: New smartphones are already being released to leverage this sort of capability. The newest version of the Android mobile operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich, uses facial recognition technology to unlock a user’s phone. And Apple’s introduction of Siri on the iPhone is setting the stage for voice recognition capabilities to come.
Not sure how it can be more secure than my Ipad2 or my windows based PC, given that I have enabled all possible security options…..as it uses the same technology and security stacks. Sure there’s GPS but i don’t need to turn it on.
Security is not the issue it convenience when and where I want to perform transfers and check balances and to see if wires and deposits have been recognized, setting up all sorts of push options to alert me on all sorts of things.
Expanding mobile options, it cant hurt paying extra depends on the options and what I value. Security is the wrong critical issue.
Mark