Right hand, say hello to the left hand

At the recent X9 meeting, I noticed an interesting pattern in the discussions about the appropriate level of security around various on-line banking transactions. In every case that I can remember, we had a discussion that went something like this:

Bank A representative: So we think that this new technology has the potential to really revolutionize banking. Bank A loves it.

Bank B representative: Our concern with that particular technology is that we'll never be able to make it secure enough. Plus, our customers really don't want it.

Bank A representative: We don't see security as a problem at all. We've actually been using this technology for over two years now and customers love it.

Because these opinions were often so far apart, I had to wonder exactly how much thought went into creating some of the banks' positions. Had they really thought through the security implications of using a new technology? Did they really have an idea of what their customers really want?

With opinions as different as the ones that I saw, I suspect that not everyone had been as careful in forming their opinions as they should have been, although it was hard to see which position could have benefitted from some additional research.