Authlete, Inc., a software component provider for API security and digital identity, and SBI Digital Asset Holdings Co., Ltd. (SBI DAH), the digital asset arm of the financial services conglomerate SBI Group, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to deepen their existing partnership and together explore opportunities in digital identities and decentralized identifiers (DIDs).

The extended partnership builds on Authlete’s existing business relationship with SBI DigiTrust, a subsidiary of SBI DAH. SBI DigiTrust has integrated Authlete’s FAPI compliant software component into its Trust Idiom, an Identity as a Service (IDaaS) solution for financial institutions. SBI DAH is also a shareholder of Authlete.

Under this new agreement, Authlete and SBI DAH will collaborate on product development and the commercialization of innovative solutions for digital identities and DIDs.

Digital identities are intended to provide consumers with greater privacy, flexibility and control over the use of their data, while enabling financial institutions to provide authorized access to services, detect and prevent fraudulent activities, and comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) /Anti-Money Laundering (AML) /Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regulations and reporting requirements.

The main challenges with digital identities are the lack of interoperability and standardization among different DID schemes, as well as data privacy and security risks associated with the new technologies. The combined experience and expertise of Authlete and SBI DAH across financial services, security technologies, and open identity standards positions them well to build out the market-leading digital identity products for the future of finance.

“Authlete’s FAPI compliant SaaS component has enabled us to build a highly secure identity management platform for financial institutions to trade digital assets domestically and internationally with greater flexibility and operational efficiency,” said Fernando Luis Vazquez Cao, CEO of SBI DAH.

“Moreover, Authlete enables us to stay up to date with the latest specifications of OAuth and OpenID Connect, the de facto standards for API authorization framework and digital identity protocol serving billions of consumers across millions of applications. This is critically important as we continue to innovate in the institutional digital asset ecosystem and expand our offerings with the highest security standards,” Vazquez Cao added.

“SBI DAH stands at the forefront of the financial industry’s digital revolution,” said Michael Mansouri, Authlete Director and Group CEO. “We are excited to deepen our partnership to contribute to developing a trust layer in the digital asset ecosystem.