Identity
What is this use case?
In this use case, an Identity answers the question, “who is the person using this application?”
Typically, the answer to that question is a specific account holder at a bank or credit union
How have others used it?
An Identity is commonly useful for a variety of uses where it is necessary to know authenticated information about the user:
- Simplify and prefill a loan application form
- Cross reference users with an existing ad targeting system to provide offers tailored to individual users
- Enable account holders to securely access and share financial data via a secure data access network
How do I use it?
You may have one option to retrieve identity information, depending upon which Jack Henry products and services are being used at your financial institution.
This is your likely option:
- Banno
Banno Digital Toolkit
If your institution has the Banno digital banking platform, then you might want to use the Banno Digital Toolkit.
The Authentication Framework, from the Digital Toolkit, protects access to user data via modern, battle-tested, tech industry standards such as OAuth and OpenID Connect, which we continue to update as those standards evolve.
With OAuth, users can delegate scoped access to third parties who wish to act on the user’s behalf. The user’s login credentials are never shared with the third party. Instead, authorization is provided to third party apps via an Access Token.
With OpenID Connect, third party apps are provided authenticated information about the user in the form of an Identity Token.
That’s how the major data aggregators are able to connect an account holder’s favorite fintech apps to their identity at your institution.
However, the Authentication Framework should not be confused with an account opening system nor with a Know Your Client (KYC) / Anti-Money Laundering (AML) system. For that kind of capability, you’ll need to look at JHA OpenAnywhere as a potential option.
Example: prefill a loan application form
Let’s say your solution requires you to prefill a loan application form.
The Authentication Framework is an ideal way to reduce manual data entry by the user, as it can provide information which the financial institution already knows about the account holder such as name, address, email, phone_number, or SSN (Social Security Number) / Tax ID.
- Note: that SSN (Social Security Number) / Tax ID is a potentially sensitive bit of data, so the financial institution must enable that information for a given connected app to use.
Example: cross reference users with an existing ad targeting system to provide offers tailored to individual users
Let’s say your solution requires you to cross reference users from an existing database so that you can provide them with offers tailored to their individual needs.
The Authentication Framework is an ideal way to perform that sort of cross referencing, as it can provide a unique customer identifier for the user (CIF for banks and Member Number for credit unions) which is typically found in other databases of customer information.
- Note: that unique customer identifier is a potentially sensitive bit of data, so the financial institution must enable that information for a given connected app to use.
Example: enrolling a new user into Banno
Let’s say your solution requires you to enroll a new user into the Banno digital banking platform.
The Authentication Framework is not ideal for this example, since it only works with users which currently exist in Banno and it cannot create a new enrollment.
Additionally, the Authentication Framework should not be confused with an account opening system nor with a Know Your Client (KYC) / Anti-Money Laundering (AML) system.
Next steps
Read the developer docs for the API which makes the most sense for your solution: