CUSTOMER AUTHENTICATION, AS A MATTER OF RISK IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

Abstract

According to some experts´ opinion, in such a technocrat society as ours, in the last decade of the 20^th century the speed of the technical developments can be equal to the changes in the first 90 years of the same century. Besides the chances and opportunities, which came into existence with the spreading of the Internet, the exact recognition of the real dangers caused by the development and the changing of the customer relationships is of an enormous significance. The `information highway´ incredibly reduces the time needed for spreading the news, and at the same time shortens the lifecycle of the information. The most obvious sources of danger of the information revolution are remarkably increased: (This thesis is to deal only with the first two sources of danger mentioned.) - without the introduction of appropriate restrictions and measures, the faceless contact between people and computers on the data-network can easily become a hotbed of anonymous crime, - the mistakes arising during the increased information-flow can cause chain-reactions, that can forecast a so-called information-catastrophe, - in a world that becomes more and more automatic, people are less and less prepared for managing unexpected actions, - the mixing of the real and the virtual information, i. e. the merging of the borders of the real and an imagined world can become a serious danger for the users. One of the new challenges that were born with the information technology is making the already operating IT structures more safe. A possible standardization and central management of the safety elements become unavoidable tasks for many organizations. As a consequence of these above mentioned arises the necessity of a knowledge-based access management. The twofold character of the task is on the one hand to find a solution to the restriction of the availability of information and functions, on the other hand to settle the universal managing of the identification variables supported by the modern law. (Most of the conditions are given to change the traditional paper-based documents with reliable, digital signatures supported electronic documents: the standardized PKI technology (Public Key Infrastructure), the Hungarian Electronic Signature Act (which meets the EU-directives), and the first authentication-services (CA) were established.) These challenges are more increased in the banking sector, since on the level of social expectancy the word `bank´ is identified with the word `trust´.