MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 25, 2014) - The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance (http://www.fidoalliance.org/), an industry consortium revolutionizing online authentication with the standards for strong authentication, today announced that Bank of America, has joined the FIDO Alliance and been appointed to the Board of Directors. Among the world's leading financial institutions, Bank of America is committing to FIDO standards for strong authentication, along with other leaders in the financial sector, including Discover Financial Services, MasterCard and Goldman Sachs.
"Providing our customers with a convenient, secure digital banking experience is a top priority for us," said Dave Godsman, Bank of America Digital Banking Solutions & Operations Executive. "As the world rapidly changes, our involvement in the FIDO Alliance will help ensure we continue to provide the convenient and secure solutions our customers want."
"Bank of America is counted among the world's leaders in financial services. As an institution responsible to secure high-value interests and relationships across consumer, government, enterprise, and business, Bank of America is among a select few 'Relying Parties' ideally positioned to drive adoption of FIDO standards at Internet scale," said Michael Barrett, president of the FIDO Alliance. "We welcome Bank of America to our Board of Directors at a pivotal point in FIDO Alliance history. With our review draft specifications just publicly released, and the marketplace poised to deploy 'FIDO Ready' certified solutions in 2014, both users and those who serve them are eager to embrace simpler, stronger FIDO authentication."
"Historically, strong two factor hardware authentication has been too costly and complicated to scale for mass markets," said Stina Ehrensvard, CEO and founder of Yubico. "We are pleased to see an ever-increasing number of large online services and financial institutions joining the FIDO Alliance and addressing the issues. FIDO certified devices offer better security and a greatly improved user experience over traditional software-and-hardware based authentication technologies."
FIDO Alliance members commit to share technology and collaborate to deliver open specifications for universal strong authentication that enables FIDO-compliant authentication methods to be interoperable, more secure and private, and easier-to-use.
FIDO specifications will support a full range of authentication technologies, including biometrics such as fingerprint and iris scanners, voice and facial recognition, as well as further enabling existing solutions and communications standards, such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), USB Security Tokens, embedded Secure Elements (eSE), Smart Cards, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Near Field Communication (NFC). The open specifications are being designed to be extensible and to accommodate future innovation, as well as protect existing investments. FIDO specifications allow the interaction of technologies within an interoperable infrastructure, enabling authentication choice to meet the distinct needs of users and organizations.
About Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 50 million consumer and small business relationships with approximately 5,100 retail banking offices and approximately 16,300 ATMs and award-winning online banking with 30 million active users and more than 14 million mobile users. Bank of America is among the world's leading wealth management companies and is a global leader in corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations in more than 40 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (
About The FIDO Alliance
The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, www.fidoalliance.org, was launched in February 2013 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The Alliance plans to change the nature of authentication by developing standards-based specifications for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords. FIDO authentication is stronger, private, and easier to use when authenticating to online services.
The FIDO Alliance Board of Directors includes leading global organizations: Blackberry®; CrucialTec (KRX: 114120); Discover Financial Services (
Contact Information:
Media Contact:
Suzanne Matick
for FIDO Alliance
831-479-1888