Identrus, a group formed by leading global banks to cement their role in providing identity trust for online transactions, has announced that membership of its global network has reached 50 financial institutions. Standard Chartered, Chohung Bank and Korean Exchange Bank have now joined existing member banks with operations that span 133 countries.
The Identrus system is a global, multi-vendor public key infrastructure (PKI) for digital certificates and signatures spanning all business initiatives. With Identrus, trading partners can identify one another on the Internet, prove their communications did not change in transit and automatically compile an auditable record of their transactions.
As Identrus Certificate Authorities, financial institutions in the Identrus system issue their corporate customers secure electronic identities called Identrus Global IDs. These digital certificates give trading partners a single 'e-passport' for business-to-business communications and transactions, not just financial services.
"Given the scope of our undertaking -- launching a global trust system with extremely sophisticated technical, legal and business underpinnings -- we're delighted to grow our membership so significantly already," says Guy Tallent, Identrus president and CEO.
The European Commission recently gave the all-clear to the bank-backed initiative, finding that because no single company will have control over Identrus, the system does not restrict competition within the union.
According to a statement from EU regulators, the decision "illustrates the importance the Commission attaches to the development of competitive ecommerce-related markets."
