16 October 2006

Norwegian BankID scheme acclaimed at ISSE 2006

The ‘BankID’ electronic identification and signature scheme that involves all banks in Norway has emerged as the 2006 winner of the eema ‘Award for Excellence in Secure Electronic Business’. Infosecurity Editor, Brian McKenna presented the award at the Information Security Solutions Europe conference (ISSE 2006) in Rome, last week.

The Norwegian BankID Scheme enables members of the Norwegian public to identify themselves and digitally sign documents from authorities, companies and other organizations. It is a scheme that delivers market trust services based on qualified certificates — without smartcards, and so without the need for a smartcard reader infrastructure.It has been provided by Banking and Business Solutions (Bankenes BetalingsSentral), the central clearing house and payments infrastructure service vendor in Norway.

The banks in Norway have already issued 600,000 BankID certificates since spring 2005 and this figure is expected to double within the next six months, finally reaching all e-bank users in Norway, approximately 2,300,000.

The scheme has worked with 182 merchants, including all Norwegian and key Nordic banks and bank groups: DnB NOR, Nordea, SpareBank 1 Gruppen AS, Terra-Gruppen, SEB, Fokus Bank, Handelsbanken and SkandiaBanken. It delivers the world’s first PKI which has provided a full roaming solution for qualified certificates to all market segments.

BankID coordinator, Grete Sørensen said, in a statement: “There have been challenges during the development, but competent banks have made sure we now have an innovative solution that already has been taken into use by 600,000 bank customers. It is a privilege to accept this international approval of the BankID scheme.

Eivin Hansen, the business manager responsible for the BankID operations at BBS said: “BBS and the BankID Scheme are very honoured to receive the eema Award for Excellence for what we have achieved in the Norwegian market. The award is a credit to all the stakeholders for designing and accepting the BankID solution assuring wide usage and end-user mobility.”

Brian McKenna said: “Infosecurity is delighted and honoured to be the media sponsor for this award. Our pan-European mission mirrors that of the ISSE conference, and we are delighted to recognize the innovation of this project.

"The judges for the award assessed entries with two criteria above all in mind: innovation and established success. So, promising pilot projects had to be put to one side, as did projects which, though sound and respectable enough, did not exhibit innovation in a way that the judges found compelling".

Head of Special Projects at eema, Roger Dean concurred: “The Norwegian BankID project embodies our award criteria, demonstrating the innovative employment of PKI to manage an e-identification and trust service which gives a less costly yet secure alternative to smart cards”.

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