"LANKASIGN will in the future facilitate the elimination of paper based payment instruments and help Sri Lankans to engage in e-commerce in a secure environment"

Cyber security, information piracy, data theft, etc, are words we hear often these days in a world going High Tech at an ever increasing speed. Eliminating information piracy, data theft, etc. and ensuring security of information transmitted online is even more necessary as e-payments are fast becoming the norm than the exception. Apart from increasing the speed of payments, the use of the electronic payment systems for transactions mean less paper and this contributes to saving trees and creating an eco friendly environment.

The use of the internet and electronic transactions have evolved rapidly in Sri Lanka facilitating greater customer convenience and attracting newer customers irrespective of demographics. This is very evident by the high usage and growth of Internet Banking and Electronic Payment Systems.

Whilst advanced technology brings about many advantages to financial institutions and to their customers, it also brings in great risks of information security and electronic fraud. Therefore as the use of electronic payments increases an advanced IT security infrastructure becomes critical in order to prevent the risks associated with information security and unauthorised access.

Authentication and data integrity are critical issues for those involved e-commerce. Both payees and payers must have confidence in the authenticity and integrity of electronic documentation sent by one party and received by the other. Just as paper based transactions have signatures for the authentication of documents, digital signatures is the way forward for electronic transactions and all types of documents exchanged electronically.

In fact, Digital Signatures can achieve a much higher degree of trust than is possible with documents authenticated by hand. Digital signing allows the recipient of the e-transaction to know with certainty that it originated from a specific party (termed non-repudiation) and that no changes have been made after the transaction has been digitally signed (data integrity).

Recognising this need the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) invited LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd. (LCPL) to be the Financial Sector's Certification Service Provider and LCPL launched LANKASIGN on 22nd May 2009, in accordance with the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006.

A Certification Service Provider (CSP) is a trusted authority which issues and manages security credentials and public keys for digital signing and encryption of electronic transactions and data. As part of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), a CSP checks with a Registration Authority to verify information provided by a requestor of a Digital Certificate. Once the Registration Authority (RA) has verified the requestor's information, the CSP can issue a Digital Certificate which can be used for the purpose of signing and encrypting electronic transactions or for any purpose which requires authentication of a document.

As the first phase, LankaClear began providing Application Specific Digital Certificates to participant banks of clearing applications such as CITS and SLIPS. In the second phase LANKASIGN started providing Email/Document Signing Certificates and SSL Server Certificates for any financial sector institution and their customers at a much lesser cost than Digital Certificates purchased from foreign CAs. These two types of Digital Certificates were launched in February 2011.

Email/Document Signing Certificates provided by LANKASIGN will provide the general public with greater security for their documents and e-mails and Corporates will benefit in enhancing the security of their internal operations and e-commerce activities. The SSL Server Certificates will provide a secure method of authenticating the legitimate Web Server.

LANKASIGN is a major achievement in the payment and settlement sphere in Sri Lanka and will surely encourage more institutions in the financial sector to adopt cost effective digital certificate based technology for enhanced information security of financial transactions.

Just as the Cheque Imaging and Truncation System (CITS) eliminated the cumbersome process of physically carrying cheques in bulk to a central clearing house, LANKASIGN will in the future facilitate the elimination of paper based payment instruments and help Sri Lankans to engage in e-commerce in a secure environment.