ING DIRECT has announced that it has partnered with Trusteer, a consumer fraud protection company, to become the first U.S. bank to offer Trusteer’s Rapport consumer Identity Theft protection software free to all of its customers.

This partnership is perfectly in line with ING DIRECT’s focus in the marketplace as it was recently ranked as America’s “safest bank” by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley. Considering the inherent risks within the industry and the steps that must be taken to protect customer information, this distinction is significant.

Rapport is a next generation consumer desktop security solution that is designed to protect consumers from online identity theft and malware threats that include phishing, pharming, keyloggers, man-in-the-middle attacks, man-in-the-browser attacks, screen-scrapers and session hijacking.

"We work very hard to ensure customer information and savings are secure. Our strategy of adding and changing security layers with minimal customer impact is critical," says Rudy Wolfs, Chief Information Officer of ING DIRECT, in a Friday statement.

"With this new product, our Customers have the opportunity to install free fraud-prevention software that protects against even the most sophisticated online threats."

Trusteer Rapport is designed to complement existing desktop security products and strong authentication solutions by taking a fresh approach. The solution protects the consumer’s transactions even when their computers may already be infected with malware.

To do so, Rapport creates a “secure-pipe” within the computer that protects all information flowing between the machine and the ING DIRECT website. This secure pipe then prevents malware from stealing confidential information from the consumer, conducting unintended transactions with the consumer’s information, or tricking the consumer into entering his or her banking eCommerce credentials into look-alike websites. 

"ING DIRECT is taking a leadership role in addressing the need for additional layers of desktop security software, such as anti-virus, anti-spyware, and desktop firewalls, to protect consumers from sophisticated attacks aimed at online banking users," said Mickey Boodaei, CEO of Trusteer, in Friday’s statement.

This new partnership covers 14 million ING DIRECT consumers throughout the world. The software will be available this summer to all U.S. ING DIRECT customers and can be downloaded directly from ingdirect.com.

With this partnership, ING DIRECT will not only build upon its reputation as the nation’s safest bank, it will extend significant value to the end customer. In doing so, the bank is building extensive value among the customer base and strengthening confidence in its solutions. In doing so, the bank will be able to deliver added value to the customer base while focusing on growth.