Croatia's Zagrebacka Banka is among leading European financial institutions which are already offering smart card-based digital identity solutions for secure online consumer and corporate banking. The bank has successfully adopted a smart card-based PKI solution which is already used by over 30,000 corporate banking customers, the largest such deployment in Europe. This has created a standard for other banks to follow.The migration towards the EMV (Europay/MasterCard/Visa) electronic payment standard will offer significant opportunities to financial service providers to deliver additional applications. E-purse, secure EMV-compliant credit/debit transactions, electronic payments and loyalty programmes are already being tested or rolled out to cardholders as part of the financial and retail organisations' strategy to win and retain customers in the highly competitive financial services marketplace. Digital ID applets embedded in the chip on the EMV card will enable these 'smart financial cards' to perform strong authentication in addition to the traditional debit/credit services, thus expanding their appeal. Looking ahead… The Corporate Access Card solution suites enable governments, enterprises and financial institutions to combine and manage multiple credentials on a single multi-application smart card-based device. The CAC does for the networked environment what the ATM or bank card has been doing for personal finance for at least twenty years …changes the way we do business.
Leveraging the military-grade IT architecture developed for the US Department of Defense, the civilian CAC will enable enterprises to enhance overall business confidence. Corporate networks will be secure from the threat of unprotected digital IDs and the flexible nature of the infrastructure will mean enterprises can select just how many applications they want to download onto the card. At the same time they will be able to maximise their return on investment for a true Return on Identity. Side bar
Corporate Access Cards in action - experiencing identity managementMicrosoft Corporation: Microsoft has issued smart card-based ID badges to more than 25,000 employees at its Redmond campus. The authorised users will carry the ID smart card for physical access to on-site campus facilities as well as remote access to Microsoft's corporate network. Microsoft has adopted the ActivCard Identity Management System™ for secure issuance and distribution of smart cards and user credentials, leveraging the built-in authentication and digital certificate management capabilities of Windows .NET Server and Windows XP.