Encap Security, an authentication security provider for financial institutions, announced Norway’s BankID selected its Smart Authentication platform for a pilot program beginning this month to test in-app authentication. The pilot aims to take advantage of Norway’s high level of smartphone penetration by creating a BankID that is mobile first and delivers an easy user experience to end-users, according to a company press release.

Originally developed to simplify online banking access, BankID is now used by 80 percent of all adults in Norway to prove their identity to various organizations across Norway, including all government departments, and all of the country's banks and mobile operators. For example, 100 percent of Norwegian banks accept BankID, more than 50 percent of people now use BankID to access and file their taxes, and 85 percent of students in Trondheim sign their tenancy agreement not with a pen but with BankID.

"The launch of BankID in 2004 confirmed Norway's lead when it came to using technology to improve banking and identity," said Frode Beckmann Nilsen, head of development at BankID Norway. "Now we want to make sure we remain ahead of the curve by creating a new experience — dropping the need to carry around key fobs or copy and paste from another app — while also ensuring the highest security standards. Each bank will provide an app and introduce it to the customers in their own pace. Our purpose with this Encap-app has been to provide a useful showroom for our next future proof BankID-experience."

The recently-released upgrade to Smarter Authentication 3.1 includes support for both Apple's Touch ID and Android's fingerprint API, making biometric authentication for many new devices possible. Smarter Authentication also has additional protection against man-in-the-middle attacks, and Encap said its use of App Defender technology means that it is safe to use even on jailbroken or malware-infected devices.