Mobile apps provide an opportunity for financial service providers to create a foundation for security and convenience. To capitalize on this, institutions need to ensure that they are making the most of the device capabilities by enabling strong, cryptographic, device-based authentication. The goal, however, is to hide the security complexity from the user to both increase compliance and eliminate authentication hassles.

The U.S. Department of Commerce last year announced three pilots in support of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). The $3 million in grants will be shared among the three recipients – MorphoTrust, Confyrm and GSMA – as they pilot solutions exploring mobile devices instead of passwords for online authentication, minimization of loss from ID theft and improved access to state services.

The stalwart of biometric authentication has long been fingerprints, with implementations ranging from high-security physical access to unlocking a mobile phone. But while other biometric modalities have made public strides in recent years, the fingerprint has been quietly taken for granted as a secure authenticator. Some are offering a new spin on the old modality by enabling it to be touchless.

Physical access control specifications for government buildings are complex. Making sure they’re deployed correctly is paramount and a set of classes from the Smart Card Alliance are designed to instruct engineers of what to do.

Easy baggage check, automatic notifications of gate and delays and even discount codes sent directly to a travelers mobile device are just some of the possibilities when traveling in the future. Airport operators are exploring many different ways to take advantage of mobile devices and other technologies to make getting through the airport as easy of a process as possible.

Enterprise physical access control technology is making its way into the home. Residential building managers find that using cards or key fobs enable easy access to front doors and shared spaces the same way they do an office building.

The number of Internet-connected devices exceeded the number of people on Earth in 2008 and in the intervening years, the number of internet-connected devices has exploded, with Cisco forecasting 50 billion devices on the global Internet of Things by 2020. Equally impressive to the breadth of the Internet of Things, is the vast array of devices that now comprise it. Everything from wireless cardiac monitors to sensors on cattle that tell when a cow is sick or pregnant, are now connected to the Internet.