EIC Blog | Interview with Tatsuo Kudo

We are here at the European Identity and Cloud Conference 2021, our hybrid event in Munich, so we are on-site. And I'm here with Tatsuo of Authlete. Welcome, Tatsuo.

Thank you.

And maybe you can explain a little, what is Authlete doing?

Yeah. So Authlete it is a backend service for OpenID Connect and the Auth0 providers, our customers can develop their own Auth as a server using our APIs, and we provide functions like token management or protocol processing so that our customers don't have to implement their own system in their server.

So and that is used in which type of use cases? Could you give us some examples for customer use cases here?

Yeah. So our solution is for everyone. So if you wanted to deploy an API service, but the most of our customers, including financial industries like Nubank, Brazil or Minna Bank in Japan and the healthcare providers that got in the Japanese market and other media companies in Belgium, which is DPG media. So they wanted to build their own Consumer Identity Access Management System, so an API authentication infrastructure.

So it is part... when a company like a media company or a bank or health care or whoever, but they are developing new digital services and they are developing their new digital platforms and then say, OK, we need to authenticate the customers, the consumers and we need to bring them in. Then they need an authentication service that is where you come in and say, OK, for all these digital services, we provide the backend, which then delivers the authentication. Does that get this right?

Yeah. But the interesting point is we don't provide user authentication functions, or a user repository, so we should be prepared by other customers. So the other words, the customers can reuse their own existing systems and integrate our solutions to provide the latest functions.

So it is that some of your customers then have existing platforms, they build new digital services around them and they need to support the new standards and new ways to authenticate, to bring in users to interact with apps and all that stuff. This is where you then come in and say, OK, open this, this this existing - I try to avoid the term "legacy" - the existing IT for building the new digital services these organizations need.

Yeah, so a lot of use cases are existing... sometimes customers are using our solutions to enable this banking or open banking systems.

Yes, it is. They have to do something new, something modern, based on apps, based on new digital services. This is where you enable them to move forward with the new standards with the new technologies. Which is, I think, a very important thing because in a digital journey, it is about speed and this is what you deliver to them, you say, OK, you don't need to invent it, we deliver what you need and you're faster, you have a higher, better time to value.

Yeah. So I think the market is quickly adapting to a more higher, secure standards like financial grade APIs (FAPI) or other accept other standards like a SEPA client issues a of authentication to provide a decoupled authentication. So which enables more user flexibility?

Yeah. So you give your customers also the option by building on 0Auth OpenID Connect, etc. to be more flexible in the way they interact with the customer, which I believe is important. And going back to my keynote at the conference, I talked a lot about enabling, delivering digital services to the business demand at speed. And I think this is exactly what you're doing. I like this, what are you doing. Thank you for taking the time to give a little bit of an insight into what Authlete is doing. I think very worth to look at, specifically when you're developing new digital services. So thank you again for taking the time to be here with me at the European Identity Conference 2021. And thank you to all of you for listening in to this talk.