SBI Digital Asset Holdings Invests $4M in Authlete

A major industry trend is open banking and open finance, which establishes a global "financial API ecosystem".

FREMONT, CA:"We run digital asset-related businesses globally and envision several potential opportunities across several sectors, from Banking to the Metaverse, including digital wallets. We are familiar with Authlete as an existing commercial partner of SBI Digitrust. With this investment, we aim to significantly expand our partnership to realize its full potential," said Fernando Luis Vazquez Cao, CEO of SBI DAH. "We look forward to working with Authlete to open new markets and add new standards with their cutting-edge technology."

SBI Digital Asset Holdings (SBI DAH), a Japanese conglomerate SBI Group subsidiary, has provided about US$4 million (500 million Japanese yen) in Series A funding to Authlete, the pioneer in adopting the most recent digital identity and API security standards. In collaboration with SBI DAH, Authlete will use the cash to quicken its international growth, create new products, and investigate new business sectors.

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Authlete is a leader in offering OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC) services, two industry standards that enable safe API authorization and identity federation. This is crucial because every service provider will develop an API to interact with clients.

 "Authlete is the OAuth/OIDC Component as a Service solution that provides the core functionality of OAuth and OIDC as API components," said Takahiko Kawasaki, co-founder and representative director of Authlete. "Our unique approach has been adopted by enterprise customers in financial services, e-commerce, healthcare, media, B2B SaaS, etc., and we are the industry leader in implementing the latest OAuth/OIDC specifications, including being the first in the world to receive all Certified FAPI and FAPI-CIBA OpenID Providers certifications."

One of the most prominent business developments is the development of a global "financial API ecosystem" through open banking and open finance. Numerous companies in the financial services industry use Authlete, including the first digital bank in Japan and the largest digital bank in the world, both of which are located in Brazil. The OpenID Foundation in the US developed the OpenID Certification test suite with help from Authlete, and it has since become the de-facto benchmark for open banking and open finance ecosystems to determine whether institutions' API security standards have been properly implemented. In the global open banking and open finance ecosystems, Authlete is essentially the standard implementation for all institutions.

The need for frameworks and standards for the next-generation identity/API is growing in some commercial fields. For instance, the gaming and metaverse businesses have a fundamental need for "assured identity" because the cyberspace they supply is now another actual environment, and real-world entities must support digital identities.

"Some countries, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), are actively embracing the open banking movement. Authlete is one of the leading services that can provide these emerging ecosystems with the expertise in collaborating with the OpenID Foundation, as well as the Authlete solution that has been proven in the real world. We are in a perfect position to expand our business globally," said Ali Adnan, co-founder and director of Authlete.

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