Financial companies worldwide are investing millions of pounds in overhauling IT systems and financial reporting procedures to comply with Basel 2. The regulations aim to make banks more financially transparent and improve their ability to assess risk, and are set to come into force from the end of 2006.
Quest E-PIN is a unique (patent pending) network phone number monitoring system that helps dramatically reduce the likelihood of unauthorised website access through an additional layer of security.
Most Internet security systems are solely based on an authorisation process of just username and password. Quest has further developed this to include the additional telephone number authorisation, by which a user can only gain access to secure and sensitive data by telephoning a central server from an authorised phone number when connecting to the website.
Comments Tom Parker, managing director, Quest Associates:
“The Quest E-PIN provides an added ‘security blanket’ for a comparatively low investment and has been designed specifically for the financial sector. It is a product that is easy to implement, and saves financial institutions having to develop a similar system in-house.”
Basel 2 has been described as the biggest IT challenge for the banking industry since Y2K and analyst firm Datamonitor has predicted that IT spending on Basel 2 compliance by European banks will reach about £1bn in 2005.
