Financial services providers who offer the convenience of a mobile application for their customers can now also offer said customers an additional layer of security for the information that application holds.

Apple kicked off its 25th annual World Wide Developers conference, with the announcement (among others) that it will be making its Touch ID system (better known among the masses as "fingerprint ID") available for use by third-party application developers. 

This means that in addition to protecting the mobile device itself, the technology can now be used also to secure individual applications on the device against unauthorized use. And customers could potentially use prints from different fingers to control different apps — for instance, right thumbprint for access to the device; left index finger for access to the mobile bank app within the device. 

To date, iTunes has been the only app to have been able to use the Touch ID system for security on its iOS devices. The Android-driven Samsung Galaxy S5 has not been as restrictive with its fingerprint reader; PayPal has been using the feature to secure its payments app, according to PaymentsSource.