XIRING and SmartSoft are providing Turkish banks with the latest technology for identifying customers in non face-to-face situations, for example on the Internet or on the telephone. By ensuring that online transactions are protected against Card-Not-Present fraud such as phishing, banks allow their customers more frequent access and hence greater control of their finances.

This win-win partnership has been driven by the growing demand for secure Internet banking services. According to Forrester Research, the number of e-banking users in Europe is set to rise from 75 million users in 2005 to 130 million users in 2007. Turkey has over 30 million EMV payment cards, which means they incorporate the security features to enable strong authentication for accessing banking services remotely.

SmartSoft CEO Murat Güzel said: "We believe that CAP based security solutions will explode in Turkey in 2007. We intend to partner with European companies like XIRING to target domestic and international markets. At this point we took a strategic decision to partner with XIRING in the Turkish market. This co-operation will bring both companies a high added-value as our solutions and customer portfolio complement each other. SmartSoft has very good coverage of the Turkish market, and combining our CAP-related software with XIRING's solutions and expertise will provide us with a cutting-edge product in the market".

Nigel Reavley, Director of Sales and Marketing for Banking at XIRING, comments: "The SmartSoft system integrates seamlessly with XIRING's Xi-Sign readers, providing banks with a proven technology to safeguard customers against increasingly prevalent online fraud. Banks are assured of the security of their online services with the deployment of a secure solution that enables strong cardholder authentication.