US account aggregation vendor Yodlee is adding two-way two-factor authentication technology from California-based PassMark to its personal financial services, such as online bill payment.
PassMark says its authentication system requires no hardware tokens or software downloads. Customers are provided with a secret PassMark - a small image and a phrase - which is displayed during log in to a Web banking or aggregation site. If the PassMark is correct customers will know the site is genuine and that it is safe to enter passwords.
Schwark Satyavolu, CTO at Yodlee, says: "PassMark has developed a unique approach that delivers the strength of two-factor authentication and two-way authentication while keeping costs low and usability very easy and reassuring to the end user.
"We believe this will be a popular approach with consumers and many financial institutions, and we are working closely to ensure the compatibility of aggregation technology with this as well as other new strong authentication approaches."
Louie Gasparini, CTO at PassMark Security, says by working together PassMark and Yodlee can ensure that consumers and financial services providers can guard against phishing and other forms of online fraud.
The Bank of America is also using PassMark technology for its new two-factor online authentication service, SiteKey.