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Nedbank's new authentication system

Stellenbosch-based Entersekt, a mobile technology company offering banks a solution for secure online and mobile banking, announced that Nedbank has implemented its interactive transaction authentication (ITA) system in its recently released Approve-it product, which will provide greater protection against online fraud for its customers.

Schalk Nolte, CEO of Entersekt says: “Banks worldwide are recognising the value of using mobile devices as an additional security device for online banking. However most banks currently send one-time passwords (OTPs) by SMS to customers who wish to execute online transactions. The weakness in this system is that the customer is then required to enter the OTP onto the Bank’s online site. If the Bank’s site is mimicked by a fraudster (i.e. a phishing site), the transaction is compromised.

In the Entersekt solution, the Bank sends a customer a cellphone prompt to confirm or deny a sensitive transaction through a simple ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ response, protecting the customer from current phishing scams which lure customers to enter an OTP into a fake site. In addition, it eliminates the hassle to the customer of keying in the OTP as the transaction is confirmed directly with the bank by way of an independent and direct cellphone response.

Fred Swanepoel, Nedbank Group’s technology executive, says: “Nedbank’s digital strategy is ultimately to be ‘digital in everything that we do for clients.’ We have spent the last two years developing software to support our vision for our clients’ digital experience. Our priority is to make our clients’ digital interface with Nedbank secure, not only to protect our clients, but also to empower them to do all their transactional banking anywhere, anytime.

“Our architecture (of which ITA is one part), which has been two years in development in collaboration with Entersekt, will allow Nedbank to roll out banking widgets and applications quickly to all its digitally enabled customers in all segments of the market from those with entry level cellphones to smart phones and tablets.”

Entersekt’s chief technical officer, Christiaan Brand, explains: “People are becoming increasingly more mobile and are demanding secure access to applications from anywhere. Entersekt offers a platform for banks to provide customers with end-to-end security. Our underlying security platform allows our customers to offer secure online banking plus provides a foundation for full function mobile banking.”

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