Context: The invention of mobile phones makes the human life easier. The purpose of this study is to identify security risks in mobile banking and to provide an authentication method for mobile banking transaction by using bio-metric mechanism. Objectives: Current mobile banking authentication is challenging and identified as a major security risk. Literature review shows that customer distrusts mobile banking due to security issues. The authors discuss security risks in current authentication methods in mobile banking. Methods: There are different methods and approaches to handle authentication in mobile banking. In this thesis, we propose a new approach of authentication in mobile banking. The strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches of authentication are identified with the help of Literature Review and interviews. The authors present basic transaction model and include security risks. By Literature Review it is found that finger print mechanism is a suitable method for authentication. Authors focus on authentication method and present a biometric scanning device which can identify the customer’s finger print thus enabling the customer to access mobile banking facility. Results: An authentication model is proposed through design process. The proposed biometric design was validated by conducting a workshop. The analysis of the workshop’s results showed that customer’s trust in security for mobile banking will be increased by finger print mechanism. To promote mobile banking, it is necessary to improve customer trust in terms of security. Conclusions: The authors concluded that, only authorized person will be able to use mobile banking services by incorporating bio-metric finger-print mechanism. By literature review and interview it was found that finger-print mechanism is more suitable than other ordinary mechanisms like login and password mechanism, SMS etc.

Using mobile phones for mobile banking, customers can push or pull the details like Funds transfer, Bill payment, Share trade, Check order and also inquiries like Account balance, Account statement and Check status Transaction history etc. It means that the customer is interacting with the files, databases etc., of the bank . Database at the server end is sensitive in terms of security. Customers distrust mobile devices to transfer money or for making any transactions. The reason is that security is a major concern for the customer’s fulfillment. Customer’s main concern in using mobile devices for mobile banking is the authentication method used to ensure that the right person is accessing the services like transaction etc.The authors made a basic model for mobile banking transaction. All security risks were included in the transaction model. Then the authors focused on authentication method. By literature review and interview it was concluded that security can be improved by bio metric methods. The authors focused on different bio-metric mechanism and concluded that fingerprint mechanism is more suitable as it requires less storage capacity in database and identifies the uniqueness of customers. The authors suggest a possible solution by proposing finger-print mechanism model and designed a bio-metric scanning device as a solution through which customer can interact with banking system using their finger-print. The result of workshop shows that bio-metric finger print mechanism is more suitable and secure then other authentication methods for mobile banking.