E-Banking has gone mainstream and providing authenticated online banking is of paramount importance. Proton Bank S.A., a leading financial institution serving private and corporate clients throughout Greece, has decided to enhance security for its eBanking application.

Proton Bank has opted for Phone (News - Alert) Factor's award-winning out-of-Band authentication service to protect millions of online banking users.

In order to authenticate online banking logins and transactions, PhoneFactor places an automated phone call to the user. On receiving the call, the user enters a PIN on the keypad. If the PIN entered is correct, the transaction or login is authorized. It works with all phones and at any place in the world. Such authentication helps to protect online banking users against external or internal threats.

In a press release, Fotis Mitsakis, Proton Bank CTO, was all praise for the service and said, "The service works perfectly for our clients, and added that "The user experience is fully localized. So when a user receives an authentication call, the messages are all in Greek. It's quick -- the user's phone rings within a few seconds, and the caller ID displays a local number."

Although Proton Bank had evaluated other methods such as OTP tokens, by which online users would be authenticated, it chose the real-time protection and out-of-band architecture offered by PhoneFactor (News - Alert) as Mitsakis believed that the service offered by PhoneFactor was secure and also much easier than the OTP Tokens solution not only for the customers but also the IT department.

Steve Dispensa (News - Alert), CTO and co-founder of PhoneFactor, said in a statement, "In today's global economy fraud knows no borders and we are pleased to work with institutions like Proton Bank who are leading the fight against online banking fraud abroad. Other banks worldwide are following suit as out-of-band authentication becomes widely recognized as a best practice in protecting online banking customers from increasingly virulent and sophisticated threats."

In addition to securing online banking, PhoneFactor also offers multi-factor authentication services to secure employee remote access and cloud services for enterprises worldwide.

PhoneFactor has been named to the Bank Technology News Future Now list of the top 10 technology innovators securing the banking industry today and as a finalist in the SC Magazine Reader Trust Awards.

In a related news release, PhoneFactor announced that its award-winning multi-factor authentication service has been integrated with Microsoft (News - Alert) HealthVault, an online service designed to put consumers in control of their personal health information. HealthVault users can now benefit from an extra layer of security when signing into the service, further protecting users’ privacy and preventing identity theft and fraud.