Standard Chartered Bank, Chohung Housing Bank of Korea and Korean Exchange Bank have joined Identrus, raising the total number of participating financial institutions in the multi-bank PKI scheme to 50.
Identrus' original founding members include ABN Amro, Bank of America, Bankers Trust (since merged with Deutsche Bank), Barclays, Chase Manhattan, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and HypoVereinsbank.
Eric Steeghs, global head of business development, global transaction services, ABN Amro, comments: "With the advances Identrus is making in helping to speed additional bank participation, such as providing packaged implementation options and e-payment and warranty solutions, we believe the next 50 financial institutions will come to Identrus even more quickly than the first."
Identrus was established to provide an interoperable trust system for banks and their corporate customers to correspond and trade over insecure networks. With Identrus, trading partners can conclusively identify one another on the Internet, prove their communications didn't change in transit, and automatically compile an auditable record of their transactions.
"The unique capabilities of PKI to secure business-to-business Internet commerce are well documented, and Identrus provides deep financial institution backing to bring these capabilities to bear in business," says Meridien Research analyst Jeanne Capachin. "Identrus has the potential to bring a ubiquitous presence and mature trust infrastructure to PKI."