OpenMarket Inc., a provider of mobile messaging and financial payment processing for direct-to-consumer mobile commerce, has selected mobile applications provider CellTrust's SecureSMS gateway to deliver a secure messaging platform.

A unit of Amdocs, OpenMarket provides services for wireless messaging infrastructure and software applications, including a suite of on-demand services, letting both large consumer brands and small enterprises launch their product offers and promotions in the mobile channel. The company can now offer encrypted secure messaging from CellTrust to customers in North America.

"We think it's a winning combination, given that CellTrust executives are Internet security veterans out to secure the mobile device and OpenMarket is a premier provider of mobile messaging and financial payment processing," said Sean Moshir, founder/CEO of CellTrust, Scottsdale, AZ.

"The partnership addresses the fact that standard SMS for certain purposes is not secure and does not meet the requirements of national and often international regulations around privacy and compliance within the financial services, healthcare, education and government among other sectors," he said.

"SecureSMS makes it possible to meet both privacy and compliancy with the highest level of secure end-to-end encryption, delivery confirmation, read confirmation, message archiving and reporting."

CellTrust claims that its SecureSMS product has additional advantages over standard SMS such as delivery, read and receipt confirmation.

CellTrust SecureSMS provides end-to-end privacy on the mobile device via a highly encrypted, tamper-proof process.

Senders can see the icons change on their phone as messages are sent, received and opened by the recipient.

The offering has unlimited message size beyond 160 characters, limited only by phone memory.

A remote wipe functionality that ensures users can wipe the handset if it is lost or stolen adds another layer of security.

Enterprises, governments, financial institutions and consumers transmitting sensitive and confidential information from handset-to-handset, server-to-handset or vice versa can now securely use the familiar SMS channel, per CellTrust.

CellTrust SecureSMS benefits include optional message archiving for reporting and compliancy and rebrandable identity via SecureSMS FAVE icon.

Users also have the option to specify their own encryption scheme. There is a unique key for each handset with decryption limited to the designated device.

CellTrust SecureSMS Gateway is certified with most major carriers, operating systems and handset manufacturers. It supports 160-plus countries and 400-plus carriers.

There will be an advertising component to the partnership, but the particulars have not been worked out yet.

CellTrust and OpenMarket are working together across their respective marketing channels to get the word out about the platform.

The companies expect that the financial services sector will benefit from SecureSMS.

"As the secure communication link between the customer and their bank, SecureSMS makes it possible to meet privacy requirements, audit and compliance requirements as well as providing secure authentication," Mr. Moshir said.