This week’s Finovate 2008 show in New York showcased nearly two dozen online financial services plays, most of them aimed directly at consumers. One of two security offerings though targeted the bank market, promising to bring ease of use to secure online authentication. Oregon–based Vidoop, which boasts Charles Schwab and AOL as its marquis customers, unveiled an out-of-band authentication option that triggers an out-bound phone call to a user after he or she enters a username on a Website. When the call comes through all users have to do is press pound, or, if the bank chooses, enter a four-digit pin, and online access is immediately granted.
“Forget your password,” is the company’s mantra, says Mitchell Savage, evp at Vidoop. The company’s trademark authentication product uses picture recognition, as opposed to recall, to prompt consumers to enter a one-time password at each login. The innovative piece of the flagship product is that banks can potentially get it for free, thanks the advertising support from retailers ranging from car manufacturers to pizza chains. (For example, if the consumer chose a car as part of his or her password sequence, BMW might pay for the number of impressions of its new 5-series served up when consumers log in. The depth of the ad message determines how much banks will have to pay for the authentication.)
