Westpac Trust Centre backs wireless PKI for authentication

Westpac has confirmed it is looking to wireless PKI as the “game changing technology” that will help drive mobile banking and protect consumer trust in online financial services.

Speaking at last week’s Banktech conference, CIO for Consumer Financial Services, Patrick Eltridge, said mobile banking is inevitable, and wireless PKI will be the enabler that helps institutions “get ahead of the curve” on fraud and authentication issues.

PKI, or Public Key Infrastructure, has been around for more than 10 years, but it’s only more recently that organisations have looked to chip-enabled mobile phones for remote signing of transactions.

Eltridge acknowledges PKI is “expensive and complicated”. However says, “we’re working to get an industry solution to enable multi-party interoperable PKI infrastructure to speed up the go-to-market offerings in this space.”

Last year, Westpac provided seed funding for the development of a tech start-up known as the Trust Centre, which it hopes will be able to work with Government and financial institutions to drive the adoption of authentication technologies.

Trust Centre Australia chief technology officer Matthew Sinclair declined to comment on when the start-up would be making services available to the industry.

Eltridge was more forthcoming, arguing that it’s important for banks as a group to take on technology like PKI to overcome fraud issues and maintain their position of trust in the eyes of consumers.

And, he says, there are other corporate drivers: “While this is part of pre-emptively guarding trust in financial services, there’s also a huge accelerant in terms of digital signing, truly paperless transactions, and truly remote third-party loan origination.”

Eltridge says: “You’ll see (mobile banking) solutions in the marketplace and trials within 12 months.”

Others remain less convinced. Paul Rickard, executive general manager and CIO, client delivery, operations and technology at the Commonwealth Bank, told the audience: “There has to be customer demand. We see it as being very low demand from our customer base at this stage.”

For now, most bankers, including Eltridge, view out-of-band one-time-password solutions as the best defence against online banking fraud, which means getting widespread industry collaboration on PKI could be difficult, at least in the short-term.

All good discussion topics I'm hoping to raise at Online Banking Review's upcoming Cyberwars forum being held in Sydney next week.