eema, the independent European association for e-business, today announced Oslo-based Banking and Business Solutions (BBS) and the BankID scheme (the banks in Norway) as the 2006 winners of the eema Award for Excellence in Secure Electronic Business. The award was presented at Information Security Solutions Europe (ISSE) 2006 in recognition for the Norwegian BankID scheme delivered by BBS.

Each year the eema Award for Excellence is presented at ISSE to the European project that has delivered a successful and groundbreaking e-business security solution, providing significant practical benefits gained over a period of at least 12 months.

The Norwegian BankID Scheme enables members of the Norwegian public to identify themselves and digitally sign documents from authorities, companies and other organisations on the Internet by using the BankID electronic identification and signature system.

The banks in Norway have already issued 600,000 BankID certificates since spring 2005 and this figure is expected to double within the next six months, finally reaching all e-bank users in Norway, approximately 2,300,000. The BankID Scheme has worked with 182 merchants, including all Norwegian and key Nordic banks and bank groups; DnB NOR, Nordea, SpareBank 1 Gruppen AS, Terra-Gruppen, SEB, Fokus Bank, Handelsbanken and SkandiaBanken. The BankID Scheme delivers the world’s first Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) solution, which has successfully provided a full roaming solution for qualified certificates to all market segments.

“The Norwegian BankID project embodies our award criteria, demonstrating the innovative employment of PKI to manage an e-identification and trust service which essentially gives a less costly yet highly secure alternative to smart cards,” comments Head of Special Projects at eema, Roger Dean.

He continues, “BBS and the BankID scheme has adhered to all PKI standards and ensured a high level of end user mobility and subsequently achieved a first for information security. This solution has numerous potential applications worldwide including ePayments and web banking.”

BankID coordinator, Grete Sørensen says, “There have been challenges during the development, but competent banks have made sure we now have an innovative solution that already has been taken into use by 600,000 bank customers. It is a privilege to accept this international approval of the BankID scheme. “

Business Manager responsible for the BankID operations in BBS, Eivin Hansen says, “BBS and the BankID Scheme are very honoured to receive the eema Award for Excellence for what we have achieved in the Norwegian market. The award is a credit to all the stakeholders for designing and accepting the BankID solution assuring wide usage and end-user mobility.”

Also announced today at ISSE 2006 is the winner of the TeleTrusT Innovation Award that commends innovative and trustworthy applications that have been integrated into electronic business transactions, demonstrating economic efficiency combined with adequate security, standard conformity and interoperability and a user-friendly layout. T-Systems Enterprise Services & T-Mobile International won the award for "OneTimePass mobile", the first service of the Mobile Communications Security Anchor for Trustworthy IT Applications with over-the-air personalisation.

About eema – http://www.eema.org

For 18 years, eema has been Europe’s leading independent, non-profit e-Business association, working with its European members, governmental bodies, standards organisations and e-Business initiatives throughout Europe to further e-Business technology and legislation.

eema’s remit is to educate and inform around 160 Member organisations (and over 1,500 Member contacts) on the latest developments and technologies, at the same time enabling Members of the association to compare views and ideas. The work produced by the association with its Members (projects, papers, seminars, tutorials and reports etc) is funded by both membership subscriptions and revenue generated through fee-paying events. All of the information generated by eema and its members is available to other members free of charge.

Examples of papers produced recently are:- Towards Understanding Identity, An Introduction to Instant Messaging, Spam and e-mail Abuse Management, Wireless Deployment Guidelines, Secure e-Mail within the Organisation and PKI Usage within User Organisations. eema members, based on a requirement from the rest of the Membership, contributed all of these papers. Some are the result of many months’ work, and form part of a larger project on the subject.

Any organisation involved in e-Business (usually of a global or European nature) can become a Member of eema, and any employee of that organisation is then able to participate in eema activities. Examples of organisations taking advantage of eema membership are Unilever, Volvo, Shell, Royal Mail, KPMG, Magyar Telecom Rt, National Communications Authority, Hungary, IBM, Microsoft, HP, and the Norwegian Government Administration Services to name but a few.

Visit http://www.eema.org for more information or contact the association on or at

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