(21 September 2005 – Australia) BankWest Business has rolled out a security token system for its online business banking customers.The bank will supply all business customers with security tokens, which generate random and new six digit code every 60 seconds, by the end of the year.
“We have decided to proactively introduce state of the art security measures to protect all our Online Business Banking customers, even though to date, we’ve had no reported cases of online fraud,” BankWest Corporate and Business Banking chief executive officer, Paul Clark, said.
“More and more of our business customers are choosing online banking, often for large transactions, and we want them to have confidence in that process,” he said.
Clark said the tokens would be issued free of charge to all existing online business banking customers.
He said the security measures were part of a major upgrade to BankWest’s online business banking facilities, which will be phased in over coming months.
BankWest said the tokens were robust, waterproof, and small enough to fit on a key ring, with a guaranteed minimum life of four years.
“Because the tokens generate their own codes, there is no need to rely on another communication medium, such as the mobile telephone network for SMS authorisations.”