I've also noticed this on a few other financial related sites. There is a delay and an animated working indicator with a message to the effect of "Creating a Secure Connection."
I'm a web developer and manage some secure web sites and creating a secure connection is simply a matter of making sure the user is connecting over SSL and authenticating the user's credentials. Neither of these require making the user wait at a loading screen. Also, given that each request to a web page is usually authenticated individually, it doesn't make sense to have a delay like this at the front door that isn't repeated for each page request.
I suspect that they are just using this language to a) make me feel better about it being secure; and/or b) mask some other activity that happens at login that takes some time.
Does anyone here know what exactly is going on while it churns on this screen?
Best Answer
It is definitely to make the user aware that the connection is secure. It is a feel-good thing. Using fiddler you can see the connection is already secure by the time you see the message.
Another tax website Taxslayer does the same thing.