Poste Italiane has contracted with French vendor Xiring for the supply of over 700,000 handheld authentication devices which it will roll out to users of its online banking services.
Xiring and its Italian partner Sheltering won the contract with the Italian post office following a European call for tender.
The vendor will supply Poste Italiane with 730,800 of its Xi-Sign 4000 devices which will be issued to customers of the BancoPostaOnline and BancoPostaClick Internet services.
To access their online accounts, Poste Italiane's Web banking customers insert their EMV debit cards into the readers and enter their PIN. Following verification the reader generates a one time password a unique one-time password for customers to use online or via a telephone key pad.
In addition to supplying the readers Xiring says it will provide other "associated services" to Poste Italiane retail customers.
The Xiring Chip and PIN readers are currently issued to online banking customers of by Royal Bank of Scotland and Nationwide in the UK. Xiring says Poste Italiane is its first client in Italy.