SOURCE: Arcot Systems, Inc.

July 09, 2007 08:00 ET

Nordea Bank Ab Selects Arcot Systems for Secure Online Payment Implementation

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - July 9, 2007) - The leading bank in the Nordic region, Nordea , has selected Arcot Systems, Inc. to make online payment safer than ever before for their customers. Arcot, a leading provider of secure e-payment and authentication solutions, will provide a comprehensive system called TransFort™ to support the bank's implementation of Verified By Visa™ and MasterCard® SecureCode™ for online payment security. The Arcot system, working with bank-issued smart cards and readers, will provide strong authentication for customers when paying online. Nordea's customers will also use the smart cards and readers to securely access bank accounts online. This marks the first time a bank will use chip and PIN strong authentication for both online payment and banking, and represents an important next step for chip card usage and online security.

Nordea's new online shopping payment security is based on a globally established standard called 3-D Secure, marketed as Verified By Visa, MasterCard SecureCode and JCB J/Secure™. Around the world, banking customers rely on this solution to protect payment accounts with a customer-created password that must be presented when paying online. Arcot co-developed, with Visa, the 3-D Secure application and is the leading technology provider now protecting more than 17 million payment accounts, 11,000 banks and 100,000 merchants worldwide. 3-D Secure programs are designed to bring the same level of security to Internet shopping as is available in the physical world by confirming to participating e-merchants that the online buyer is the actual cardholder.

Nordea used extensions to Arcot's TransFort to make online shopping much more secure. Arcot's system works in conjunction with bank-issued smart cards and readers to provide strong, one time password (OTP) authentication for Nordea's customers. When paying, the cardholder first receives a random challenge number from the site. After unlocking the card with a PIN entry on the reader, the customer enters the random challenge. He then obtains a unique number calculated on the smart card microprocessor chip and enters it to complete the payment process. This strongly protects online payment and prevents fraud, because without the card, the reader and the knowledge of the PIN, online payment with the card is not possible.

Arcot's authentication system is compliant with the MasterCard Chip Authentication Program (CAP) 2007 standard and Visa's Dynamic Passcode Authentication for EMV chip-based OTP applications. EMV is a global standard for smart bankcards managed by an organization operated by JCB International, MasterCard International, and Visa International.

"Nordea has always been at the forefront of the e-payment market and Arcot is proud to have such a leading financial services institution choose the TransFort solution," said Elis Nemes, vice president Europe, Middle East and Africa for Arcot Systems. "Sweden has one of the highest consumer adoption rates for online shopping and Internet banking in the world, and the e-security solutions adopted by this country are amongst the world's most robust, sophisticated and advanced. We believe that Nordea will set an example how to gain additional card holder protection in a convenient and efficient way, which many banks in Europe will follow."

About Arcot Systems

Arcot Systems is a leading provider of risk-based authentication, strong authentication, digital signing, and cardholder authentication solutions. The company makes online transactions safe for millions of customers by blocking fraud and protecting access. Arcot technology defends against Internet threats including phishing, man-in-the-middle, and spyware. Its 100% software authentication solutions eliminate the need for hardware tokens and complex login processes providing customers with strong, PKI-based authentication with the simplicity of a username/password interface. Arcot offerings are compliant with U.S. and international standards including 3-D Secure, IdenTrust, SAFE and FFIEC Internet Banking Authentication recommendations. For more information, visit http://www.arcot.com.

Arcot, Arcot WebFort and ArcotID are registered trademarks of Arcot Systems Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and are used for identification purposes only.

For more information visit www.arcot.com.