Membership in the FIDO Japan Working Group rose to 25 companies over the past year – more than double the number of members the group had after it was launched near the end of 2016.

That’s one of the key takeaways from a new FJWG assessment from FIDO Alliance Director of Marketing Andrew Shikiar. Writing on the consortium’s website, Shikiar also notes that the working group now includes JCB, Japan’s only international payment brand, while the membership of KDDI means that all three of the country’s mobile network operators are onboard.

Meanwhile, another MNO, NTT DOCOMO, recently launched the first certified implementation of the FIDO UAF 1.1 authentication standard in the form of its d ACCOUNT app, which allows users of certain devices to access a range of services. The UAF 1.1 specification is designed to ensure that developers working on apps for Android 8.0 or later have access to APIs for implementing FIDO authentication, which should help to considerably reduce development time and costs, and encourage more developers to implement FIDO standards into their apps.

Shikiar asserts that this flurry of activity in FIDO’s Japan Working Group “is in line with what we’re seeing globally, where organizations are recognizing they need to reduce their reliance on passwords and other older forms of authentication, and move towards FIDO Authentication that is stronger and easier to use.” That’s encouraging news for organizations and end users, all of which can stand to benefit from more sophisticated digital authentication in an increasingly online world.