A system and method of authenticating a calling party to a remote service, including receiving a request via a communications network to approve a future call to the remote service using a calling identifier associated with the calling party, recording an approval of the future call subject to the future call being made within a predetermined period of time, the remote service receiving a call at a point in time using a calling identifier, determining if a call at that point in time using the received calling identifier is recorded as approved by the authentication system, and, if so, the remote service accepting the call and using the approval of the authentication system to authenticate the calling party.