Vauhini Vara writes for the Wall St. Journal about the latest tools banks are using against identity theft and online bank fraud.

Stanford Federal Credit Union, a small bank on the Stanford University campus, uses a validation system similar to the one that Bank of America will implement.

Both are designed by the same company, Redwood City, Calif.-based PassMark Security Inc., founded by former Intuit Inc. and PayPal chief executive Bill Harris.

Doug Crets reports from Hong Kong for The Standard regarding new requirements by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to require that banks move to two-factor authentication for online banking access beginning next month.

The Authority's press release announcing the move is available online as well as the text of a brief speech on the subject of two-factor authentication by Mr William Ryback, Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

“Two-factor authentication further strengthens the security controls of Internet banking and protects bank customers from Internet banking frauds," said Mr William Ryback, Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA.

“Hong Kong is one of the first places amongst the developed financial markets to establish such a regulatory requirement which enables Internet banking to continue to flourish under a safe and sound environment."

Ling Liu writes for the San Francisco Chronicle from Shanghai exploring online auctions in China.

Unlike in the United States, where eBay is the clear leader in the online auction business, the company has considerable competition in China. In 2003, the popular Chinese business-to-business Web portal Alibaba.com started Taobao.com, a consumer auction site and eBay's biggest rival. In April 2004, Yahoo China paired up with the Chinese web portal Sina to start 1pai.com, another consumer auction site, but it lags far behind market leaders eBay and Taobao.

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