Secure authentication and payment system

Abstract

The present invention provides a service for allowing secure financial transactions to be carried out, the service involving authenticating a user's identity and/or status as part of a financial transaction with another party and in the event that the user is authenticated arranging for the transaction to be completed without revealing the user's financial details and/or other personal details to that other party. Authentication data and transaction data may be communicated over any suitable communications channel(s). The invention provides a trusted authentication and payment environment that protects a user's financial details, but allows them to be securely authenticated and arranges for transactions to be fulfilled, whilst providing other parties with reassurance that transactions will be completed. In this way, fraud and theft due to misappropriation of financial details can be minimized.

1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 establishing and storing a first relationship with a first user, the first relationship defining a dynamically controllable and selectable selection of at least one user-specified and user-specific authentication method selected from a plurality of stored authentication methods of different types and useable to authenticate the identity of the first user in a non-predictable and anonymous manner; and   upon receiving an authentication request related to the first user, controlling an authentication device to validate the identity of the first user by presenting the first user with at least one of the previously selected dynamically controllable and selectable user-specified and user-specific authentication methods previously selected.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of stored authentication methods of different types include interactive voice recognition via a voice telecommunications channel. 
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 2 , wherein the interactive voice recognition is directed to a predetermined telecommunications device. 
     
     
         4 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of stored authentication methods of different types include a fingerprint-based authentication method implemented on a device including both a fingerprint reader and a mobile telecommunications apparatus. 
     
     
         5 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of stored authentication methods of different types include providing an answerback PIN via an SMS message. 
     
     
         6 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one of the plurality of stored authentication methods utilize one or more selected from the group consisting of: IP protocol data and device identity data.