From identification to authentication: Our products for digital trust

What does the financial sector have in common with healthcare, e-commerce and energy companies? They are all among the most frequent victims of cyber attacks. We read about attacks, data leaks and data breaches or employee misconduct almost every day. Traditional security measures and compliance standards alone are not enough to meet today’s complex requirements for secure and trustworthy systems. With our Digital Trust Center, we integrate the various components of digital trust, such as cybersecurity, privacy, auditability and interoperability, and thus pursue a holistic approach that aligns trust, security and technology throughout the entire user journey.

With a comprehensive range of coordinated services and products, we create and maintain trust ecosystems that allow our clients to establish trustworthy business relationships with their customers and other stakeholders. Our Digital Trust Center integrates technologies and applications into existing infrastructures and processes. This enables companies to minimize risks through automated compliance checks, continuous security analysis and tailored training. With this approach we create a robust security environment that ensures digital trust and enables companies to design their digital business processes securely and efficiently.

Every customer relationship begins with secure identification. Everyday life is complicated enough, and customers don’t have the time (or simply don’t want) to physically stand in line at a branch or struggle through an unintuitive identification app online just to open a new account. Opening an account is still more complicated and time-consuming than it needs to be. Digitalization means more than just transferring analog processes to the digital world. It’s about rethinking entire processes and mapping them in a digital solution that helps users to obtain services more quickly and easily and frees companies from tedious and cost-intensive administrative tasks. With ti&m Online Identification, we offer banks exactly that: a fully automated solution that allows new customers to identify themselves and open an account at any time and from anywhere in the world.

As experts in online identification, we know identification is only one part of the user journey and the processes that take place in the background. That’s why we not only support our customers in seamlessly implementing ti&m Online Identification as a white label solution. We also optimize all parts of the existing or newly created user journey and thus increase the customer onboarding conversion rate. For us, thinking complete processes through to the end also means linking identification with CRM or other applications and integrating downstream services such as digital signatures. For its new signature process “Swisscom Sign”, Swisscom uses ti&m Online Identification to identify customers in a legally valid way and to issue qualified electronic signatures that can be used repeatedly to conclude contracts and transactions in Switzerland and the EU. Software development kits (SDKs) for web and mobile platforms (iOS and Android) enable seamless integration into different environments, and the identification service can be used either on-premises or as a service from ti&m. The award-winning ti&m Online Identification is FINMA-compliant and meets all Swiss and European security standards such as ETSI and eIDAS. Our document verification system recognizes identity cards and passports from over 40 countries and is able to read the document used for identification through both the machine-readable zone (MRZ) and the visual inspection zone (VIZ).

In recent months, various banks have asked us whether they will still have to provide their customers with online identification at all once the e-ID is introduced in 2026. One thing is certain: The e-ID is voluntary and not all Swiss residents will use it right from the start. However, banks should already be considering how they want to integrate the e-ID into their onboarding processes to position themselves as a digital-first bank and appeal to digitally savvy customers. We can also be certain that by integrating the e-ID, the onboarding process can be made faster and more customer-friendly, because new customers can provide the bank with their e-ID directly from their wallet, instead of having to go through the entire identification process with photographing and reading of the physical identity card. Here at ti&m, we are following the development of the e-ID closely and will be able to integrate it into our onboarding process and thus make it available to our customers when it is introduced.

Cyber attacks have not only increased significantly in Switzerland. They are also causing billions of dollars in damage worldwide. The widespread phishing method is still an effective way for cyber criminals to obtain sensitive information. Adequate protection therefore forms the basis for the success and well-being of individuals, companies and societies. The threats are continually increasing. Comprehensive security of sensitive data and adequate protection of complex systems, open platforms and innovative solutions are therefore essential, and are fundamental pillars of digital trust.

One of the key measures to improve digital security is passwordless authentication. This offers a future-proof alternative to conventional passwords. Password systems are known to be vulnerable. This is why the FIDO Alliance (Fast Identity Online) – a cross-industry association of organizations and companies – has developed and promoted global standards to reduce the use of passwords and support secure and user-friendly solutions. With passkeys, an extension of the FIDO2 standard, an innovative option has been created that replaces passwords with cryptographic key pairs. Unlike passwords, these private keys are never ex- changed over the network and so never leave the device (smartphone or other hardware token) or the device manufacturer’s ecosystem. Therefore, in contrast to passwords, they cannot be intercepted or stolen.

ti&m embraced the paradigm shift in secure authentication as long ago as 2013 and offered its customers a passwordless and phishing-resistant alternative. With ti&m Authentication, we have developed a userfriendly authentication platform that meets the highest security standards and is based on the same technology as passkeys. We recognized the added value and potential of this technology early on and used our extensive digitalization experience to simplify the main authentication hurdles without compromising security. Seamless and simple integration into customer-specific environments offers the necessary flexibility of a local Swiss product, whether in traditional corporate networks, cloud infrastructures or mobile applications. A trailblazer in the development of more secure, user-friendly and adaptive authentication solutions in a world that has to adapt to ever-changing requirements.