ING in Europe and USAA in the US have taken board positions at the Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance.
The FIDO Alliance launched in 2013 to provide open standards for simpler, stronger authentication beyond the password. Financial services has been an engine for the group ever since PayPal joined, fairly soon after its launch.
“As one of seven founding members, PayPal has made it clear from the outset that passwords have proven themselves to be a significant problem for the financial services sector and their customers,” said Dustin Ingalls, president of the FIDO Alliance. “We welcome two leading financial institutions, ING and USAA, commending them and, by extension, the financial sector’s growing influence in the FIDO Alliance. Together, we can make a security difference for companies around the world.”
Financial services firms in general have an urgent need for strong authentication, as their clients demand privacy, security and convenience in all transactions. Pent-up demand in mobile payments for instance accelerated the world’s first deployment of FIDO authentication when PayPal, Samsung, Synaptics, and Nok Nok Labs collaborated to meet the need.
FIDO board members Alibaba and Nok Nok Labs have also partnered to deliver FIDO authentication for securing mobile payments for 600 million Alipay users.
“In today’s digital world, our customers expect to do their banking the way they want, when they want and in a consistent, reliable, clear and easy way. ING’s strategy is built on providing our customers access anytime, anywhere in a clear and easy way. Yet, security is paramount and cannot be compromised,” said Rob Bening, CISO at ING Bank, which is a global financial institution with a strong European customer base. “We support FIDO authentication and its advancement globally, because it’s an open, scalable and interoperable framework that can support the current and future authentication needs of our customers and the industry.”
USAA, meanwhile, is mainly known for its property insurance for military veterans and their families, but it also offers banking, investments, retirement products and advice.
“USAA offers world-class capabilities that take advantage of an ever-maturing digital marketplace,” said Rick Swenson, AVP of the company’s Enterprise Security Group, Operations Support. “We wholeheartedly support secure, innovative measures to ensure our members’ security through any channel of their choice.”