Gemalto Tackles ACH, Wire Transfer Fraud

Digital security outfit Gemalto this week rolled out a new product designed to secure online banking transactions and prevent ACH and wire transfer fraud.

Dubbed the Ezio Plug & Sign, the product is a USB device with a smart card and Adobe Reader capabilities that uses public key infrastructure (PKI) standards and can plug into any computer and provide a secure web browser for online banking. The portal allows a user to access an email client, view online statements and perform electronic bank account management as well.

While Plug & Sign would be ideal for a bank's corporate customers, according to Adam Dolby, Gemalto eBanking manager for the Americas, it is also designed to benefit small-to-midsize business, nonprofits and even municipalities.

"It can be very difficult to detect ACH fraud, especially for smaller organizations that don't have a huge IT staff," Dolby said.

Dolby said that community banks and credit unions could benefit from offering Plug & Sign to their customers, as those smaller instituions are increasingly becoming the target of cyber attacks by hackers.

"Just because you're not the biggest bank in the world, it doesn't mean you can't be a target," he noted. "If you're doing business on the internet, you might as well be Citibank, as far as a hacker is concerned."

In addition to the security functions, Dolby believes the product is unique in that it allows banks to roll out new services and apps to its clients through the device without the need for new hardware. "Through the device itself you can push out different services to customers," he noted. "It meets both business and security needs."

The device is built on Gemalto's Ezio suite of technology already in use by banks around the world, and can be integrated to work with a bank's existing vendor solutions, Dolby said.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio