“…NTT Data’s mobile business chief, Katsufumi Fukunishi, praised Nok Nok Labs for demonstrating skill ‘in building robust, advanced authentication technology’ that can replace password-based authentication.”

A high-profile partner could significantly extend the reach of Nok Nok Labs‘ S3 Authentication Suite in Japan and beyond. The company has announced that NTT Data has become an authorized reseller of the biometric authentication platform.

It’s much more than a standard reseller arrangement, though. As Nok Nok Labs explained in a statement announcing the partnership, its S3 Authentication Suite “will form the cornerstone of a new systems integration offering from NTT Data focused on biometric authentication.” NTT Data’s leadership expect that the solution “will produce an additional 1 billion yen (over $8 million USD) in sales by 2020,” and Nok Nok Labs says they will use their experience with the biometric technology “to further develop new solutions for the Mobile Network Operator (MNO), Financial Services, and Public Sector marketplaces all over the world.”

Commenting further, NTT Data’s mobile business chief, Katsufumi Fukunishi, praised Nok Nok Labs for demonstrating skill “in building robust, advanced authentication technology” that can replace password-based authentication. “We look forward to leveraging a standards-based approach to help our customers future-proof their authentication investments in existing and emerging fields, such as the Internet of Things (IoT),” Fukunishi added.

That all points to a potentially extensive – and lucrative – long-term collaboration between Nok Nok Labs and NTT Data. But for now, the latter is simply offering Nok Nok Labs’ S3 Authentication Suite to its customers, effective immediately.