Firms partner to launch online security app

First Authentication Services Limited (FASL) has partnered with innovator in mobile-enabled digital banking security, Entersekt to make Transakt available in Nigeria.

Transakt is a patented two-factor authentication and app security product that provides full protection from phishing and other attacks targeting the online, mobile and card-not-present channels.

Transakt uses state-of-the-art digital certificate technology and proprietary validation techniques tailored to a wide range of mobile devices to create a mutually validated, end-to-end encrypted communication channel between a bank and its customers’ mobile phones or tablets.

This channel, which is fully out of band, delivers push authentication prompts to users in real time. They approve or reject transactions and digitally sign their responses with a single tap, while Transakt does the hard work in the background securing the entire process. There is no need for expensive hardware tokens or cumbersome one-time passwords.

The Transakt software development kit can be integrated into existing full-service banking apps, but it is also available as a stand-alone authentication app available in all major app stores. Bespoke customization of the authentication app is also now offered by Entersekt for banks that want to deliver a fully branded app directly to their customers.

FASL’s Business Development Lead, Vincent Ezeora said, “Transakt is the ideal two-factor authentication solution for Nigerian banks. The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) recently stated that banks lost N18 billion to fraud in 2015. This underscores how poorly current solutions, mainly based on one-time passwords, are serving the country’s financial institutions.”

The solution defeats phishing and man-in-the-middle/browser schemes, mobile malware, keystroke logging and number porting, SIM swaps and many other forms of attack. “It is specifically engineered for the financial services industry and protects a comprehensive range of channels – Internet, mobile, e-commerce, in-branch interactions, call centre interactions and more,” Ezeora continued. “With it, banks can offer their customers user-friendly digital banking capabilities at a competitive cost, without exposing them to fraud.”