Hanseatic Bank unifies authentication with Netcetera and Entersekt

Hanseatic Bank unifies its authentication processes with a cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) solution from Netcetera, the market leader for secure digital payments. In the future, the German private bank will use the same authentication procedures for credit card payments on the Internet, login to online banking, and various self-services, including the "Transakt" app from Entersekt.

Many banks use separate authentication procedures for credit card payments in e-commerce, account logins or transaction approvals. Especially in the course of the PSD2 implementation of strong customer authentication for card payments, many bank customers have to re-register for an additional procedure. Since the security of an authentication procedure depends largely on the security of the registration process, this is usually a rather cumbersome process for customers. The use of a uniform procedure saves customers this additional registration.

"We immediately saw the potential of the authentication app for the use of our credit cards in the 3-D Secure project with Netcetera," says Rüdiger Mause, Business Owner Digital Factory at Hanseatic Bank. "The step to use this app for business transactions and logins in the future was obvious for technical and commercial reasons. However, the decisive factor was to implement the PSD2 requirements for SCA in the most user-friendly way possible by using uniform authentication procedures. At the same time, Netcetera's new identity management solution enabled us to fundamentally modernize our onboarding and lifecycle management processes. The SaaS architecture facilitates our operations."

Netcetera's new identity and access management simplifies authentication for end customers significantly. They now only need one account at their bank to use various applications and services. Generally, customers are then also able to recover their access data themselves. This option is helpful, among other things, if one of the registered factors gets lost because, for example, the password has been forgotten. The bank, on the other hand, benefits from being able to serve its customers with a uniform branding, a single authentication procedure and without switching to other apps. The IAM is the ideal complement to the Access Control Server for 3-D Secure, but it also works as a standalone system.

Netcetera's authentication app uses Entersekt's PSD2-compliant Transakt SDK. When needed, a request is sent to the user's smartphone via push notification, displaying the content of the business transaction to be released. Using biometrics or alternatively a PIN, the user can accept the request. "By providing a secure communication channel as well as various authentication factors, Entersekt technology combines excellent security with superior user experience. We are pleased to be part of Hanseatic Bank's success story as an integral part of the Netcetera IAM solution," says Uwe Härtel, Country Manager Central Europe at Entersekt.

"The acceptance and user-friendliness of the 3-D Secure procedure for payment cards depends significantly on the fast and smooth authentication method," says Bernhard Binz, Director Sales at Netcetera. "Since for many customers strong authentication procedures for their bank accounts are common practice, they naturally cope much better in both worlds with a uniform procedure. Additionally, this is immediately at hand when hunting for deals in online shopping. With our new IAM solution, which we offer as a cloud service, we enable banks to improve their services."