The Identrus corporate authentication system went live Monday, with ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and HypoVereinsbank leading the way. The four financial institutions have each launched Identrus Certificate Authorities and are deploying seven Identrus Connected applications to start. They are also the first to launch applications on the system that take advantage of Identrus identity verification capabilities. These applications are designed to secure e-marketplaces, messaging, document transfer, commercial insurance sales, CLS foreign exchange, and online bill payments and commercial Internet banking.

Deutsche Bank has gone live with db-eBills, an Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment solution for corporate clients, supporting hundreds of users. Deutsche Bank’s first customer, Community Cargo Network of Singapore, uses Identrus Global IDs for payments at an electronic marketplace for trading global air cargo space. By replacing a paper-based system, the electronic facility has slashed processing time from approximately 15 working days to three working days claims the bank.

Identrus enables Internet payments by identifying the payers and legally binding them to their transactions. At Deutsche, individuals prove identities and sign transactions with db-eTrustCard, a smart card containing an Identrus Global ID, for db-eBills and other secure applications.

The German bank is also applying Identrus to its db-Escrow service, a secure payment service for buyers and sellers in online marketplaces or exchanges. Buyers place their money in the escrow account, and the money is released when they receive the goods promised.

"Deutsche Bank considers Identrus as a strategic component of all of our e-commerce products and initiatives," says Stephan Paxmann, Deutsche Bank’s programme manager for Identrus. "We plan to Identrus enable all of our new and existing e-commerce products where a Global ID is necessary, in order to provide the highest security and trust standard to our corporate clients."

HypoVereinsbank, Germany’s second-largest bank, is using Identrus Global IDs to secure business-to-business applications for Allianz, the largest insurance company in Europe. With Identrus, Allianz is letting its corporate customers who buy life insurance for their employees access and manage their portfolios over the Internet. Allianz customers use Identrus Global IDs to digitally sign their online transactions, eliminating the need for faxes, mail and phone calls to execute legally binding transactions. Production rollout of the Allianz application started in October.

HypoVereinsbank is also using Identrus to secure Multiweb, an electronic banking platform that connects corporate customers to financial institutions’ processing systems. Multiweb lets companies both in Germany and abroad access accounts and handle large volumes of payment transactions via the Internet. The system also advises customers of incoming payments, reports sales data, executes domestic and foreign payment orders, enables express money transfers, and supplies details on portfolio holdings and accounts, says the bank. The system is live today and the bank plans to extend it through its branch network in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

"With Identrus, we can help our customers take full advantage of business-to-business Internet commerce opportunities by providing Internet identity trust through myriad applications from e-mail to online corporate banking," says Peter Landsmann, HypoVereinsbank’s first vice president of e-commerce.

In the US, Bank of America FileSign for Trade is an Identrus enabled Web-based document signing application that gives companies the ability to securely conduct international trade business over the Internet. In its final stages of development, FileSign will allow companies to control and monitor access, send and sign electronic trade documents, eliminate paper and postage expenses, and reduce processing and turn-around time, says the bank.

Bank of America Authentication Services, along with Fundtech’s PAYplus CLS, also provides a secure Identrus enabled application to mitigate foreign exchange (FX) settlement risk. Identrus digital certificates provide secure access to PAYplus CLS capabilities which include: real-time FX trade confirmation and transmission to the CLS (Continuous Linked Settlement) bank, real-time liquidity updates and forecasts; daily CLS pay-in and pay-out compliance and daily third-party and branch settlements.

Like BofA, ABN Amro is developing services for B2B payments, and applying Identrus to ensure confidentiality, authentication and non-repudiation for customers accessing the bank’s Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS) server. The CLS Bank, a multi-bank initiative, aims to remove risk from foreign exchange settlement between banks

The Dutch bank is also integrating Identrus security features in a number of its online transaction products, including the letter of credit initiation service TradeStation Online and its GTS Portal Web-based interface for corporate account access.