• Product Reviews
• 15.05.2017 08:21 am

SecuredTouch is the first leading provider of behavioral biometrics for mobile services that offers digital-world authentication solutions to strengthen security and reduce fraud, at the same time allowing smooth digital experiences.

Idea Behind the Launch of Behavioral Biometrics

There has always been a big trade off between functionality, user-friendliness, and security. On one hand companies want to allow users the best functional experience and on the other hand, they want to avoid friction. In order to balance all these factors together, the company tried to think about the technique that could provide the best option. The solution was considered to be invisible to users, as well it had to be very strong in terms of functionality and security.  

Moreover, as a financial organization that delivers or allows doing a lot of sensitive operations in the mobile channel, the user needs to feel very safe to do all the things, without being stopped at every place. So this is how SecuredTouch came up with behavioral biometrics, something that should be run at the background, just by leveraging the existing things that are already out there.

Behavioral Biometrics

Mobile behavioral biometrics refers to the stage when a user is analyzed by different physical interactions with several types of connected devices, in order to draw significance of identity of the user, who will specifically be deploying the device.

Furthermore, the way users interact with the mobile device is analyzed and measured by 100 different parameters. For instance, how big is the user’s finger that touches the device, how much of the pressure does the user’s finger put on the device, how fast you move your finger across the screen or how fast you scroll. As a result, about hundred parameters are collected, so later on they can be compared between the current behavior and the user’s profile that will come behind the scene. This way, we can make sure that this is a real user using a device just by looking at the behavior and see if there is a match.

Target Market

Currently, target market includes financial organizations that provide any kind of mobile service, or mobile application, where authentication or identification is a big issue. Mostly, these applications involve money transfers, or e-commerce applications, and every other application that involves authentication or knowing that this is a real user behind every transaction.

Integration Process

The integration is done to a specific mobile application. The process normally takes a few hours and consists of two parts. It is very easy and fast to integrate into the application and that is the application side. There is also integration on the back end, which takes approximately two or three days.

Real-life Example of Applying Behavioral Biometrics within Financial institutes

As an example, in Israel the company works with one of the credit card issuers, Leumi card. The company develops a mobile wallet, which can be downloaded by users and deals with all sorts of transactions. Behavioral biometrics was integrated into the mobile wallet platform, for both the IOS and Android. This collaboration allowed better user experience and simplified authentication process. Normally, every time customers want to transfer money, or want to look at the card bank and do something sensitive, they will act like putting a password or a pin code to proceed with further transaction. When it comes to transaction with a SecuredTouch, user behavior is continuously monitored. Then, when the user wants to do a transaction, the wallet calls to SecuredTouch and asks for a trust code, which is an out-code of the technology. It is kind of a confidence level and if the technology recognizes over 90%, the user does not need to enter a pin code and customers can proceed to the transaction, without being stopped on the way. 

Challenges and Opportunities

The main challenge is to provide mobile users with the best of the user experience in all aspects. In terms of service, while staying very competitive, SecuredTouch is looking for the edge of making the services even better than it is now. There is a need to have security biometrics that complements one another, and choose the best one to make it more functional, user-friendly, and secure.

Yandex.Checkout enabled companies to accept payments via marketing newsletters. 

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) today entered into a co-operation agreement with the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong to foster collaboration in support of financial technology (Fintech) innovation. 

The Malta Stock Exchange is to continue its use of Deutsche Börse trading technology. The two stock exchanges have extended their agreement retroactively from 1 January 2017, for another five years, until 31 December 2021. 

The Royal Mint has timed its first entry into the platinum bullion market to coincide with London Platinum Week. 

Blockchain Expo Europe, the leading conference and exhibition covering blockchain technologies and its practical uses on global industries, has announced the addition of Deloitte and PwC to the line-up for its Berlin event on 1-2 June 2017.

The event, which takes place at the Estrel Congress Center, will see Deloitte and PwC speaking at the Blockchain for Industry conference track.

Deloitte has published several reports and articles on the rise and expected impact of blockchain, naming it as one of its eight tech trends for 2017 and noting that blockchain is “changing our digital landscape… it will change the way consumers interact with each other, and the way in which traditional digital services are provided across all industries globally,” while PwC has said it sees “enormous potential” for blockchain in financial services.

“These latest additions to our speaker line-up emphasise the increasing importance of blockchain technologies in a variety of use cases, as well as noting its implications to reach a much wider community,” said Ian Johnson, event director, Blockchain Expo. “We are delighted to feature the expertise of Deloitte and PwC for our event attendees.”

Other confirmed speakers for the Berlin event include:

• Dr. Thomas Schönfeld, Director, Financial Services Advisory, Pricewaterhouse Coopers
• Benoit Abeloos, Policy Officer, ICT Innovation, European Commission   
• Stefan Thomas, CTO, Ripple
• Khalid Aziz, Head of Commercial Management, Nokia
• Leon Zuicchini, Data Science Strategy, Airbus
• Achim Jedelsky, Head of Processes/IT, Daimler Real Estate
• Jesus del Valle, Deputy Director. Head, M&S IT Intrapreneurship & Innovation, Bayer
• Dirk Vollmann, Head of Customer Onboarding, BMW Group
• Sönke Bartling, Senior Scientist, dkfz - German Cancer Research Center
• Jacob Bejoy, Head of Group Treasury Operations, BPO & Technology, Deutsche Post DHL
• Bruce Pon, Founder/CEO, BigchainDB
• Francois Sonnet, Co-founder, Solarcoin
• Alex von Frankenberg, Managing Director, High-Tech Gründerfonds GmbH

The last Blockchain Expo, held in London in January this year, exceeded all expectations with in excess of 50 exhibitors and 1500 attendees, with speakers from Hitachi, Microsoft, HSBC, Innovate UK and Nordea Bank setting the precedent.

Registration for the event is free with advanced rates on Gold passes currently available. For more information, please visit www.blockchain-expo.com/europe

For further information contact:

Beth Betts, Marketing Manager

Blockchain Expo

enquiries@blockchain-expo.com / +44 (0)117 980 9020

www.blockchain-expo.com

Monzo.me just got an upgrade! From today, if you visit a Monzo.me page on a phone or tablet that has Android Pay, you’ll be able to pay your friends and family even faster. No typing required and it should take less than 15 seconds.

Sungard Availability Services ® (Sungard AS), a leading provider of information availability through managed IT, cloud and recovery services, today revealed that issues related to the office environment are an increasing reason for organisations to invoke their recovery services. In fact, 8 out of 10 invocations* are due to workplace incidents.

While the threat from malicious cyber attacks continues to grow and dominate headlines, this year’s data shows that the physical workplace environment is becoming increasingly vulnerable. Compared to the previous year, the number of invocations resulting from a workplace issue, in which the office environment is subsequently rendered inaccessible, have grown by 200%. In fact, 2016 saw the highest level of environmental issues since the annual analysis began over two decades ago. Companies are in danger of neglecting their physical surroundings, as they focus efforts on ensuring a more robust and secure virtual infrastructure, such neglect could have serious consequences for them, as well as their employees and customers. For example, something as simple as maintaining power to the workplace may seem a given, but power failures continue to hold second place as the largest cause of invocation failure in the workplace office environment. These types of invocations are on the rise for the third successive year; in absolute terms increasing 50% on 2015, whilst as a percentage of total workplace outages they now account for one in four failures (24%) up from the one in five impact of previous years 19% (2015) and 18% (2014). With 21^st century digital initiatives being power dependent, such failures stand to undermine the very progress organisations seek to achieve as they undergo transformative IT programmes.

Meanwhile, issues arising from communications-related failures have remained at exactly the same level as last year and remain the leading cause of business invocations. Despite challenges such as lengthy disruptions caused by rail strikes, the analysis reveals two areas of concern: that businesses are still not equipping their workforce with reliable means to communicate, whilst investment in appropriately robust communications systems for the workplace lags behind that for IT (with not even a single communications-related outage being reported by Technology Recovery customers). As working practices continue to move towards a more flexible model, it’s more important than ever that organisations take steps to ensure their employees can reliably stay in communication with their colleagues, customers, and other important stakeholders.

The analysis of Sungard Availability Services’ annual Availability Trends report** also shows that whilst technology invocations are maintaining a downward trend, issues relating to hardware failures increased by 140% this year. Noticeably, these customers invoked QuickShip services – the delivery of IT equipment – meaning that it was likely the failure occurred on the IT hardware under their control.

Commenting on the latest results, Daren Howell, Product Marketing Manager, Sungard Availability Services Operational Risk Management & 'People' Recovery Services, said: “It’s clear from this year’s data that not enough investment is being made to ensure facilities are properly maintained. Companies cannot afford to neglect the environment in which they house their people and hardware otherwise they risk seriously impacting their ability to service customers and potentially squander their position in the market. Our very own Buckingham Palace is a good example of this – due for its biggest refurbishment since the Second World War, the cost of the project has a current price tag of £360 million to carry out essential work to mitigate against ‘catastrophic building failure’.”

“This is just one element that could impact business availability. A joined-up approach that unites all aspects of a business’ operating model is the key to ensuring true availability.”

Keith Tilley, executive vice president & vice-chair for Sungard Availability Services added: “In today’s ruthless and fast-paced business environment where customer loyalty can turn on a dime, it is more vital than ever for companies to avoid any reason for customers and employees to look elsewhere. This is easier said than done when the IT environment is increasingly complex and digital skills are at a premium. It’s becoming increasingly impossible for companies to go it alone as they just don’t have the in-house resources and expertise required for such complex IT environments. This is where we can support – providing the much-needed third-party support that allows companies to maintain their position in the market and even look to challenge it through new innovations. Having peace of mind that their IT is in hand gives them the freedom to focus on driving their businesses forward.”

* An invocation occurs when a Sungard Availability Services customer calls upon Sungard AS to action their Business Continuity, Technology Recovery or Workplace Recovery arrangements.

**Availability Trends (formerly known as Invocations) research reports annually on factors impacting the uptime of Sungard Availability Services’ UK customers and/or how they are ensuring business as usual.

Rabobank and Signicat are entering the Dutch identity market together by providing digital services to businesses, supporting them in servicing their clients. This joint Digital Identity Service Provider (DISP) offers a range of online login, identity, signature and archiving solutions under the banner of Rabo eBusiness. It provides optimal convenience for a range of businesses, including insurance, energy and leasing companies as well as other financial services providers. It simplifies and improves the digital transformation they are under pressure to achieve.

Rabo eBusiness helps businesses to shape their online services in an easier, more reliable and efficient way to achieve higher online conversion. Consumers can log onto the merchant’s website using one of the identity services provided by Rabo eBusiness and can then, for example, sign a contract online. The platform is easy to integrate into the existing business processes using API technology.

Rabobank will initially focus on five customer groups: energy, telecom and insurance companies, healthcare institutions and financial services providers. Rabo eBusiness services will make it easy for them to enable functions such as onboarding new customers, signing contracts digitally and offering a dashboard for invoices or expense claims.

The market for DISPs opened on 1^st April 2017 within the framework of iDIN. Alexander Zwart, responsible for Online Channels & Access at Rabobank, explains that Rabobank already has a good starting position, having: ‘Advisory skills, a large market share in the business market, operational services and a mature salesforce. In order to be able to offer technology and a high-quality and safe range of products, we have opted not to develop it ourselves, but instead to collaborate with a well-established strategic player. Signicat has a proven Digital Identity Service platform that is considered leading in the Nordics, a mature digital identity market.’

Signicat in turn wants to expand its presence in the Dutch market. Gunnar Nordseth, Chief Executive Officer of Signicat: ‘We have been operating for some time as an identity service provider in the Nordics and are currently expanding into other parts of Europe. The Netherlands is a strategically important market for us and a European hub that has great potential for digital identity, signature and archiving services. Collaborating with an innovative bank such as Rabobank gives us the opportunity to fulfil our ambition.’

The platform has been designed to grow in tandem with market demands and can consequently be expanded to include additional services. This lays the foundation for achieving Rabobank’s strategic ambition to help its customers with the digitalisation of their services.

Global Banking and Finance Review has announced ICS Financial Systems Ltd., the global software and services provider for banks and financial institutions, the “Best Islamic Banking Technology Provider MEA 2017” 

Global Banking and Finance Review awards ICS Financial Systems Ltd in recognition for its prominent in particular areas of expertise and excellence within the global financial community. The award reflects the innovation, achievement, strategy, progressive and inspirational changes taking place within the financial sector. ICS BANKS ISLAMIC provides a complete  - shari’a compliant - banking business solutions, and have facilitated banks in achieving a competitive edge by offering a complete integrated End-to-End and comprehensive suite of Islamic Banking applications, that is suited to the bank’s needs whether it’s for an Islamic bank or a conventional bank looking to create an  Islamic Banking  window.

Editor, and Global Banking & Finance Review; Wanda Rich commented: 

“Global Banking & Finance Review Awards ICS Financial Systems Ltd “Best Islamic Banking Technology Provider MEA 2017” for the second consecutive year in recognition of their continued commitment and dedication to providing comprehensive Islamic Banking solutions. ICS BANKS ISLAMIC provides banks with the comprehensive, scalable Islamic software solutions needed to improve performance.” Miss Wanda added “We look forward to seeing further growth and industry-leading solutions from them in the years to come.”

Managing Director of ICSFS, Robert Hazboun commented;

“We are honoured to receive such an award and to be named the “Best Islamic Banking Technology Provider MEA 2017” for the second consecutive year. We have been focusing on the Islamic banking industry for a while now, as it has been rapidly growing.,” Hazboun added” As a proof of our success with the Islamic Banking applications, ICS BANKS ISLAMIC has shown an increase of demand, as our customers are enjoying scalable, sophisticated and flexible products and services that addresses and fulfils their requirements."