LONDON, 26 September 2018 — Ping Identity, the leader in Identity Defined Security, today announced the successful completion of 70 technical security tests set by Open Banking Ltd. These tests allow UK banks to more easily implement industry guidelines that drive competition and innovation in UK retail banking.

Open Banking Requires Stringent Testing

Set up in 2016 by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and funded by the UK’s nine largest banks and building societies, Open Banking Ltd. assists in the implementation of an Open Banking standard to enable customers to share their bank account information and conduct transactions securely with other certified third-party providers.

Working in parallel with the EU-initiated second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), Open Banking Ltd. is tasked with designing the specifications for the Application Programme Interfaces (APIs), security and messaging standards that banks and building societies use to securely enable third-party access.

As part of this process, each participant in the ecosystem must meet Open Banking Security Profile Conformance. This is maintained in a cloud-based conformance testing area leveraged by banks, certified third party security providers and platform vendors—such as Ping Identity. To certify conformance, each entity must run a series of tests on software, APIs and processes and follow the Conformance Certification Process to submit the results for validation.

“Conformance testing is a critical part of the push towards the adoption of Open Banking,” explained Phil Allen, vice president, EMEA for Ping Identity, “We’re delighted to see our leadership reinforced as the first ‘platform vendor’ to pass, without warnings, the mandated test and optional requirements set forth by the program. It’s a testament to the investment we’ve made in support of this project.”

The conformance testing used the latest versions of the Ping Identity Platform, including PingFederate, PingAccess and PingDirectory within a mock banking environment.

Ping Identity Sets “Gold Standard” in Testing Achievements

Banks, building societies and other financial service providers can now be confident that the Ping Identity Platform will help them establish backend workflows that comply with the Open Banking Security Profile, while also eliminating the need to build the technology from the ground up.

The UK has been at the forefront in the push towards Open Banking, which was officially mandated from January 2018. This also includes efforts supporting PSD2-related initiatives. “Our solution has been designed with enough scope to easily meet the PSD2 guidelines. As the first Open Banking initiatives begin to launch over the next 12 months, the groundwork taking place in the UK will create a template for others around the world,” added Allen.

Commenting on the successful completion of the latest conformance testing round, Chris Michael, Head of Technology at Open Banking Ltd shared, “The commitment that security platform vendors, such as Ping Identity, have made is helping the UK to establish itself as a world leader in open banking. It means delivering viable solutions to help financial services organisations quickly and effectively meet the required security standard. We’re delighted to share that Ping Identity is the first platform to pass all the mandated and optional security tests and could be considered as the ‘gold standard’ that others should seek to emulate.”

Click here to learn about the full scope of the Open Banking Ltd. conformance testing and details supporting the Ping Identity implementation. To learn more about technology solutions for Open Banking and PSD2, visit www.pingidentity.com/psd2.