Retail Services News South Africa

South Africa based IT company opens in UK

Entersekt, the mobile technology company that offers banks a comprehensive solution for secure online and mobile banking, having had significant interest from banks in both the UK and Europe, has opened an office in the UK.

The UK office is headed by UK security industry heavyweight Mark Kacary, who most recently was one of the founding members of security distributor CiRRUS. Kacary also previously ran UK sales for authentication vendor Aladdin Technologies.

"Opening an office is a sign of commitment and confidence. We have a product, which is not only better than anything else on the market, but will enable our customers to offer their own customers more services, more functionality and more value for their money," says Kacary.

Kacary says he decided to join the Stellenbosh-based company for a number of reasons. "I was exposed to its technology through CiRRUS where we were always looking for new and innovative technologies. CiRRUS had relationships with a number of IT security experts in South Africa, many of whom have now joined Entersekt and it became clear to me that we were looking at a unique solution, which not only delivers a powerful underlying enterprise security platform, but unlike many other solutions it is a business enabler. I just had to be a part of it."

He states that potential UK clients are very open to technology developed in South Africa. "There is an understanding from many people in the banking industry that in a number of ways South African banks are ahead of the game where banking security is concerned. The speed at which banks in South Africa had to adapt to the use of mobile was significantly quicker than in the UK. In the UK, more people have Internet connectivity at home and it has only really been with the growth and development of smartphones that banks here have realised that a bank customer requiring immediate mobile access to services would exist. There has been an acceptance for some time of South African tech companies in the UK. For example Dimension Data, with South African origin, has been highly successful in the UK."

"My vision would be to see the company's Interactive Transaction Authentication solution being the platform of choice for all banks. This would make it easier for customers as they would only need one application on their mobile phones, and would then choose the services of whichever facility they prefer. The ability to be banking with, for example Barclays and/or HSBC, and to have a single solution allowing secure access to multiple accounts, would benefit banks and their customers equally," he concludes.

For more information, go to www.entersekt.com.

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