Seven days into my new job at BS&T and I have seven new password and log-on combos.
You can imagine how it struck me when security veteran RSA announced a new security token to authenticate customers for online banking that fits in your wallet like a credit card and, the release boasted, can bear the name of each bank issuing such a card. Great! It's not enough that I have two credit cards and one debit from JP Morgan Chase, alone, for example; I can look forward to having to carry additional cards to back up the original plastic online.

Not that it's RSA's fault. Culturally, banks are disinclined to pool customer information. So, the software used to authenticate customers who have RSA's new SecurID Display card resides at each bank, not in a central repository.
That psychology stands in the way of biometrics –- authenticating individuals using parts of their anatomy. A technology seemingly always ahead of its time, biometrics has finally seen some general application for airline travel post 9-11, with fingerprint and retina scans.
Since you can't actually forget your head, biometrics could save the information-overloaded citizen from remembering a growing list of log-on combinations.
But for banking, it seems it's not to be. RSA offers biometric authentication but, says Rachael Stockton, product manager of its new SecurID card, "Banks' problem is that they don't have control of where, say, a fingerprint is stored."
And in a Financial Insights teleconference just before the July 4 holiday weekend, an old American Banker headline heralding the popular coming of biometrics provoked a chorus of laughter.

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