OFX boosts efficiency, bolsters security, and fulfills Identity needs with Okta

As a leader in international money transfers, OFX helps people and businesses affordably move their money while enjoying a seamless digital experience. Since 1998, it’s grown into a global organization, now serving over a million customers and 450,000 recurring users across seven jurisdictions.

In the world of cross-border payments, security is paramount. That’s why OFX partners with Okta to prioritize efficiency and security and enhance its workforce and customer experiences.

"When I choose a partner, I look for companies that can grow with us and help us grow,” said Adam Thomas, CTO. Okta is now the trusted identity partner for all of OFX’s workforce and customer Identity use cases.

Helping a growing global team find efficiencies

Cloud-first by nature, OFX sought an Identity and Access Management (IAM) partner that could support rapid growth with seamless integration into other third-party SaaS products. With automated phishing resistance, identity management, and governance solutions, Okta’s cloud-native Workforce Identity Cloud provides one place to manage Identity across the organization.

By augmenting OFX’s lean team, Okta automates provisioning and deprovisioning for employees around the world, improving onboarding for new hires or employees from mergers and acquisitions (M&A). In a recent acquisition of Paytron, the team integrated new employees in a two-week sprint rather than the three months it would have taken without Okta. ”From an employee’s perspective, the experience is much smoother. They have access to everything they need to quickly get started,” said Jason Pereira, director of engineering.

On the offboarding side, Okta quickly removes users, maintaining the level of security and governance OFX needs.

OFX continues to evolve its usage of Okta, adopting Okta Identity Governance (OIG) to enhance user management and access controls. OIG continuously monitors users’ access, right-sizes permissions as needed for governance best practices and supports OFX’s ongoing commitment to compliance across regions.

“Okta gives us the support to meet compliance requirements around the world, rather than figuring it out for ourselves,” said Thomas.

Fortifying security and elevating the customer experience

With Okta powering its workforce identity, OFX saw an opportunity to elevate customer identity by unifying all its IAM needs with a single provider. Until 2020, OFX had been using a homegrown open-source solution that made it difficult to track users and manage access. The time and effort required to maintain and upgrade this system, while keeping pace with an evolving threat landscape, got in the way of OFX’s focus on innovation. Any new solution needed to unify OFX’s different brands and products across its multiple websites and mobile apps.

Recognizing the inherent benefits of one provider for both workforce and customer identity, OFX turned to Okta. But to guarantee it was choosing the best possible tool, the team evaluated Okta against five competitor solutions. Ultimately, Okta Customer Identity Solution (CIS) won for its seamless integration, ease of use, and comprehensive capabilities.

An evolving solution for a better user experience

OFX implemented CIS to create a secure, frictionless user experience. With Single Sign-On, customers can sign in once and not worry about credentials to access multiple applications. Similarly, the transition from the old identity system to Okta occurred with little impact on users and enabled OFX to maintain the same look and feel.

Deploying Okta for customer identity has also streamlined customer experience by accelerating M&A processes. OFX can quickly consolidate newly acquired companies into the existing platform, ensuring customers can easily access new products and benefit from unified identity. “We were able to quickly and securely bring new businesses into our ecosystem,” said Pereira.

Santanu Lodh, CISO, is now clear on the choice between build and buy. “Having a platform like Okta for customer identity provides more reliable IAM. Given the choice, I’m always going to choose to buy [versus build]."

Security as differentiator, not detractor 

With Okta, OFX can provide a positive user experience without compromising on security. Like many businesses, OFX has seen a significant increase in cyber attacks, going from one attack a month to many per week. In this landscape, MFA has proved invaluable. “We rolled out MFA just in time. We were prepared for an increased attack frequency where we faced multiple threats a day,” said Thomas. With Okta in place, OFX now stops 100% of fraudulent attempts.

Okta has also accelerated OFX’s ability to meet threats. “We are implementing security features and measures 10 times faster than we could have before,” said Thomas. The duration of attack periods has also reduced dramatically. “Previously, attacks could go on for days, but now many stop within minutes, as hackers realize there is no way through,” he adds.

Features like ThreatInsight have been vital to OFX’s security strategy. “Previously, a credential stuffing attack incident would take a team of four engineers to evaluate and respond. Now, we have one person monitoring reports and a lot more peace of mind,” said Thomas. Lodh shares a similar sentiment: “The combination of Okta’s security features, including MFA and ThreatInsight, has helped me sleep more peacefully.”

A long-term strategy with security at its core

As OFX matures, it will lean into its partnership with Okta to meet all identity needs within a single, unified platform. “Security is only going to get more important, and Okta gives us a roadmap of innovation and improvements that can be part of this journey,” Thomas said.

OFX recently upgraded to Okta Enterprise Support and is preparing to move to Okta Identity Engine to support a vision for a passwordless system in the future. “We don’t have to look for another product or think about integrating another platform,” Thomas said. “With Okta, we have a single identity management platform that covers all use cases today and for the future.”

About OFX

OFX grew from an idea that there had to be a better, fairer way to move money around the world. That was in 2001 and since then, over a million customers have trusted OFX with transfers in 50+ currencies to 170+ countries. Its clients get the best of both worlds: a seamless digital platform combined with 24/7 phone access to currency experts.