Majority of financial institutions to invest in biometrics and other MFA tech in 2019

Mar 6, 2019 | Chris Burt

Majority of financial institutions to invest in biometrics and other MFA tech in 2019

Nine out of ten financial institutions are falling behind in their ability to authenticate customers and step up security, and 96 percent still rely on legacy processes including usernames and passwords for authentication, according to a new survey by OneSpan.

“The Future of Adaptive Authentication in the Financial Industry” report was prepared by the Information Security Media Group, and shows that 60 percent of financial institutions plan to invest in new multifactor authentication technologies this year, including products that rely on biometrics and artificial intelligence or machine learning. Currently 44 percent of respondents say that too many disparate tools make it challenging to coordinate them effectively, and the same number say they are challenged by legitimate credentials which have been exposed in data breaches and social engineering schemes being used in account takeover attempts.

More than half (55 percent) of financial institutions say they do an average or below average job of authenticating online customers and transactions.

“The report’s findings echo what we are seeing with our customers,” comments OneSpan CEO Scott Clements. “Financial institutions are under pressure to improve their defenses against continuing and evolving threat vectors. Many are now choosing innovative technologies that dynamically respond to attacks as part of a layered security approach that stops fraud while improving the customer experience.”

OneSpan will host a webinar on the report on March 13.

The company recently announced it beat its 2018 financial guidance after rebranding from VASCO and increasing its focus on biometrics.