South Korean banks are planning to adopt a unified authentication certificate for online transactions in July to enhance customers' convenience, industry people said Sunday.

Eighteen members of the Korean Federation of Banks plan to introduce the unified certificate named BankSign in July to allow customers to make online financial transactions using their PIN numbers, secret patterns or fingerprints, a bank official said.

Customers can download the BankSign from each bank's application and use it for three years free of charge. The BankSign certificate will be initially available on mobile phones, he said.