Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to begin rolling out handheld authentication devices developed by French vendor Xiring to its online retail banking customers.
Xiring says RBS customers will begin receiving its Xi-Sign 4000 for Apacs portable standalone EMV-enabled smart card readers this week.
Customers will use the devices to access Web banking accounts. The user inserts their smart card into the reader and inputs their normal four digit PIN code. Following verification of the PIN, the reader displays a eight digit one-time-password that is valid for a single transaction and is used as the final stage of authentication when accessing accounts via the Internet.
As well as supplying the readers Xiring will provide fulfilment services and distribution to RBS retail customers.
Xiring did not disclose financial terms of the RBS contract but says the contract is a "key milestone" in its development strategy.
Last month Barclays said it was issuing handheld chip and PIN readers provided by Gemalto to half a million customers who use online banking to transfer funds to new third party accounts.