Technology

Supercharging security in Australian banking

Macquarie Bank’s focus on security delivered Macquarie Authenticator, a market-leading app helping to protect Australians from scams and fraud.

Swipe for more

Sector	Technology and services
Sub-sector	Retail banking
Location	Australia

Opportunity

The techniques used by fraudsters and scammers are constantly evolving, resulting in Australians losing billions of dollars each year. A key focus of their activity has included exploiting vulnerabilities in traditional two-factor authentication (2FA) technology used by banks to verify customer account activity.

Macquarie Bank – part of the Banking and Financial Services Group – recognised that traditional methods of 2FA, such as using codes sent by SMS, are less secure and lacked the detail customers need to approve attempted transactions or changes to their account details with confidence.

Approach

Macquarie saw an opportunity to develop a purpose-built solution that would provide its banking customers with a seamless and more secure digital experience and, in 2019, launched Macquarie Authenticator.

The digital security app, designed by Macquarie’s digital team, provides a more secure alternative to SMS-based 2FA with detailed push notifications sent in real-time directly to a customer’s verified device.

Macquarie purposefully designed the app to give its customers full visibility over what action has been requested on their account. Notifications from the app provide details tailored to the specific activity. For instance, a payment attempt notification includes the amount, origin and destination account, while a login notification for Macquarie Online Banking includes the time, approximate location, and web browser information. With all this information at their fingertips, Macquarie customers can be more confident the request is genuine and approve or deny the action in real-time from anywhere.

In a market-first, Macquarie also gave customers even greater control over their security by enabling them to choose between ‘Enhanced Mode’ or ‘Ultimate Mode’ via Macquarie Online Banking or the Macquarie Mobile Banking app. Depending on their own preference, these settings allow users to customise the frequency level of verification for sensitive account activities, such as account logins.

Outcome

Over one million banking customers now use the Macquarie Authenticator app for its seamless experience. Among these users, a growing number are choosing to activate the highest security settings, empowering them to confidently manage their account security.

Following its successful adoption by personal banking customers, Macquarie Authenticator’s enhanced protection capability has been extended for use by business banking clients, mortgage brokers, advisers and their support staff.