As part of the refurbished online operation, St George plans to move to a system of SMS-based authentication to enable retail customers to transfer funds out of their account. This identification system, which remains relatively rare in online banking at present, would be used in addition to the conventional password access to the site.
The bank does not envisage that an SMS password would be necessary for simple online enquiries, such as balance checking.
A system of token-based identification is likely to be provided for business customers, but the bank did not feel that such a system would be suitable for retail consumers.
In an interview with the Australian newspaper, St George’s chief information officer John Lobenstein said, We will use a token for business customers, but for individual customers we’ll SMS or telephone it on selected transactions. Tokens are relatively expensive if you’re issuing two million of them, and what happens if you lose it, or if the battery runs flat?
As with its current eBanking platform, the new St George online banking service will be developed entirely in-house.
