Template free biometric e-banking authentication: more trustworthy or false trail?

Identity management is an area that has proved challenging for many e-service providers such as e-banks. The problem is how to authenticate on-line consumers at the initial point of registration and also how to re-authenticate on-line customers each time they wish to access e-banking services. Hitherto, e-banks have adopted several different technological approaches to user authentication. These include traditional user passwords, as well as one-time passwords that necessitate the user operating a specialist device. In order to more fully conceptualise the area it is proposed that e-banks should classify the available and emerging using that we call a "Sign Based Identity Management" approach. One emergent solution is considered in more detail: namely template free biometric authentication. Our contribution suggests that the hitherto neglected area of biometric user authentication for e-banking may not only be more robust than existing whilst also meeting many of the requirements (security, usability, strong trust model, less vulnerable to replay attacks) of existing methods.