Hitachi Buys Majority Stake in ID Management Vendor

On Monday, Hitachi announced it had bought a majority stake interest in M-Tech Information Technology, a password management software vendor, in the idea of expanding its own line of products for identity management. Hitachi already has an important role in the ID management products market. The authentication products sold by the company are based on the identification of the patterns of the veins in the user's finger.

Hitachi declared in a statement released on Monday that the Japanese financial institutions already use the finger-vein authentication system designed by the company in a massive proportion. There are about 80 percent institutions using Hitachi technology from the total number of institutions that use for their automated teller machines the biometric log-on systems. In the same statement, Hitachi also said that the company intends to use the M-Tech software in "joint offerings and other initiatives with Hitachi's biometric, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), smart card and other security-related technologies."

The M-Tech products are expected to help Hitachi in its plans of expanding its own product line. The company hopes that M-Tech will provide new software that the company will be able to use for support on the management of functions on the back end. The applications created and sold by M-Tech are P-Synch and ID-Synch. These applications are designed to help customers create new user credentials and also manage passwords on the network. There are over 700 companies worldwide that use M-Tech's products, including Barclays Bank, Shinsei Bank and Sears, Roebuck.

M-Tech Information Technology was founded in 1992 and has its base in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Hitachi has made no declaration so far in what concerns the financial terms of the deal. Shortly after the transaction, the 140-person company was renamed by Hitachi, now being called Hitachi ID Systems.