December 12, 2014 - Mobile authentication startup Payfone is working with US financial institutions to introduce technology that utilises the same security standards applied by wireless operators to identify their customers as they log-in to m-banking apps.

The company has partnered with Early Warning, which is owned by Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, Chase and Wells Fargo and is also a Payfone investor, to roll out its Identity Certainty platform early next year.

Identity Certainty has more than 300M mobile identities under management thanks to a partnership with the four largest telcos in the US. The company assigns each identity a unique tokenised ID that's based on mobile subscriber's phone number, SIM card and account number, and tracks changes in customer use as they are reported to the networks.

If a phone is reported as lost or stolen, Identity Certainty automatically revokes the mobile ID, terminating access to apps and services in real-time on the individual device.

"Identity Certainty is in the proverbial drinking water, with an always-on, invisible layer of protection that requires no downloads or changes to an individual's daily behavior," says Aaron Bartrim, Early Warning's chief technology officer. "The elegance of Payfone's Identity Certainty platform is its simplicity, shaping mobile security to the consumer, adapting to existing human behavior, especially when they need it the most."