Iovation Study Points to Importance of Mobile Security in Financial Services

“…just as younger consumers tend to show a higher preference for mobile banking, those in the 18-34 age range tend to prefer using the biometric authentication capabilities of those devices, whereas older survey respondents showed more of a preference for security questions.”

Customers are increasingly accessing financial services on mobile devices, and providers need to be strategic in accommodating their security preferences. That’s a key takeaway from iovation‘s “2019 Financial Services Fraud and Consumer Trust Report”.

Based largely on surveys of 802 consumers in the United Kingdom and 802 consumers in the US, iovation’s report delivers some key findings. Over 90 percent of consumers aged 18-74 are in the habit of paying bills online and 89 percent are transferring money between accounts. But younger consumers tend to prefer mobile devices for these activities, while older survey respondents tended to favor desktop.

Virtually all of those surveyed were aware of the risk of identity theft (98 percent) and credit card fraud (97 percent); and 97 percent were aware of multi-factor authentication techniques. But this is where another generational shift comes up: just as younger consumers tend to show a higher preference for mobile banking, those in the 18-34 age range tend to prefer using the biometric authentication capabilities of those devices, whereas older survey respondents showed more of a preference for security questions. The preference for biometric authentication also was associated with high income survey respondents, perhaps reflecting the preponderance of sophisticated biometric systems on higher-end phones.

As more consumers move to mobile channels – which already account for 60 percent of traffic – fraudsters are following suit. iovation says that risky transactions on mobile devices have increased 138 percent in the past two years alone. Meanwhile, two out of five survey respondents said that they had closed accounts due to security concerns, and two of three said they would switch companies to get better security.

The takeaways from this analysis are pretty clear. Companies need to offer increasingly strong authentication options on mobile devices while also ensuring that older customers on desktop can still have their security preferences met. And for its part, iovation could be part of the answer, given its platform’s support for multiple device-based authentication solutions.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)