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Banque Populaire Group is issuing 400,000 Xiring Xi-Sign card-authentication readers to its customers for use while banking online. For online banking, users insert their bankcard into the reader and type in their PIN using the reader keypad. The chip in the reader then generates an eight-digit, one-time password that displays on the LCD reader. Users then type in that password on the bank's Web site to confirm their identities. France-based Banque Populaire claims to be the first French bank to use the readers. Xiring delivered the readers to Banque Populaire during the fourth quarter. More than 4 million United Kingdom consumers use the readers. In December, UK-based financial institution Co-operative Financial Services purchased 300,000 readers to deploy to its customers in April (CardLine Global, 22 Dec.). Banque Populaire did not respond to CardLine Global requests for comment.
