The blueprint for mutual authentication is being developed by a 25-member FSTC group -- which includes eight of the top 10 banks in the country -- and is designed to make it easier for financial institutions to deploy strong authentication technologies and for consumers to adopt them, Salters said.

"In a nutshell, it is about getting financial institutions together to discuss the commonalities that need to be in place for deploying stronger authentication," Salters said. "The key driver is how do we retain some of the commonalities that are in place today [across the retail banking sector] so that we can prevent customers from getting confused?

"It is also about articulating to vendors what the requirements for the financial industry are as far as interoperability and [technology] features," he said.