Patent ID: 8826371

Claim:
An authentication computing system for providing authentication of a customer of a financial institution making a request related to a customer account of the financial institution from a receiving application through any one of multiple channels, the authentication computing system comprising: at least one computer processor executing multiple receiving applications for receiving customer requests and collecting customer data, the customer requests received through multiple channels coupled to the at least one computer processor; a central authentication computing system including computer processing components programmed for performing operations including: receiving the request and customer data from the receiving applications at an authentication engine; accessing an information source containing data pertaining to customer activity with respect to the account; determining a level of risk associated with the customer; communicating the risk level from a risk assessment engine to the authentication engine; storing rule sets for multiple risk levels; storing credentials as tasks such that one series of tasks can be swapped or sequenced with another series of tasks; providing authentication criteria for authentication of the customer; and determining, through the authentication engine, whether the customer is sufficiently authenticated based on the risk level and the authentication criteria, the central authentication computing system determining partly based on the receiving applications.