Apata Limited, the 3-D secure (3DS) provider for banks and merchants, has launched support for 3DS authentication via BankID applications in Norway.
3DS is a security protocol for online transactions, requiring the cardholder to authenticate transactions via in-app notifications, SMS codes, or biometrics, to prevent payment fraud and false chargebacks.
BankID is a digital identity tied to individuals’ legal identities managed centrally by Stø AS. Apata’s support of BankID notifications for transaction authentication allows individuals to approve payments directly in their BankID application via pop-up notification. Banks and issuers who use Apata’s 3DS access control server (ACS) platform will now have the ability to configure authentication challenges to require approval in an individual’s BankID application.
BankIDs are used by 99% of the adult population of Norway1 for payments, signatures, and tax portal and utilities accounts access. In Norway, it’s estimated that BankID users perform more than 200 authentications annually for online transactions and other tasks with more than 900 million total transactions taking place via BankID in the country annually1.
“Supporting BankID for payment authentication is a major step forward in Norway. We’re bringing authentication into an experience cardholders already know and use, reducing friction and creating real potential to increase approval rates. It also reflects a much wider shift in payments away from SMS and OTPs towards app-based authentication that better matches how people expect to interact with financial services today,”
said Niklas Apellund, Co-Founder and CTO of Enfuce.
Enfuce is a leading European card issuing and payments processing company that enables banks, fintechs and other financial institutions to launch secure and scalable card programmes. Through its cloud-based platform, Enfuce provides card issuing, processing and payment capabilities across markets globally, including Norway. Enfuce uses Apata’s 3DS ACS to provide 3DS infrastructure to its portfolio of financial institutions.
“This is exactly the kind of capability we want to bring to our customers. Thank you to the Apata team for working with us to make it possible. Together, we’re helping financial institutions strengthen authentication without compromising the payment experience.”
“3DS is a necessary mechanism to protect people by reducing fraud. But we don’t want to introduce unnecessary friction into the payment approval process for cardholders. It’s bad for individuals who can’t complete transactions, and bad for all of the stakeholders in the payments ecosystem. Providing our bank and issuer customers the ability to configure smart challenges in the interfaces their cardholders are used to using every day is part of our ethos to facilitate safe but smooth payments globally,”
said Shekinah Adewumi, CEO and Co-Founder of Apata.
“I’m delighted we’ve launched support for BankID authentication in Norway. When digital identities like BankID are the primary mechanism for access control servers in particular regions, our engineers are extremely quick to extend our platform to support them. I’m looking forward to further extending the Apata platform’s regional capabilities to enable more payment authentications,”
said Gleb Mendrul, Product Manager at Apata.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by Apata
