Colombia implements Gemalto authentication solution for National Savings Fund

The Government of Colombia has deployed Gemalto’s SafeNet Authentication Service to secure citizens’ online access to financial services.

The solution provides secure, cloud-based multi-factor authentication when Colombian citizens log into their Fondo Nacional del Ahorro (FNA/National Savings Fund) accounts. The FNA provides a broad range of financial services, including retirement savings, loans, higher education financial support, and unemployment benefits.  Colombian citizens benefit from simple, easy-to-use two-factor authentication provided by the solution. After entering their online user name and password, FNA account holders receive a one-time password (OTP) via SMS text or email that they then enter online as a second form of user authentication and additional security to protect their online accounts.

SafeNet Authentication Service is a cloud-based offering that enabled the government of Colombia to rapidly deploy a highly scalable authentication solution to support millions of users with no upfront capital expenditures. In addition, the Gemalto authentication solution integrated easily with the FNA back office systems, which simplifies enrolling new users, provisioning new tokens, and reporting for the FNA IT organisation.

Cesar Amar, Vice President of Technology at FNA, said: "Gemalto’s cloud-based authentication solution met out goals to operate with no infrastructure costs and be highly automated. It was also very important that the SafeNet Authentication Service was very simple and easy to use for Fondo Nacional del Ahorro account users."

François Lasnier, Senior Vice President for Identity Protection at Gemalto, said: "The SafeNet Authentication Services provides the scalability and cost-effectiveness for organisations to support millions of users without having to invest in infrastructure. That is a significant advantage for IT organisations that are looking to operate as efficiently as possible while being able to protect access to a large number of applications and services."