Streamlining Identity management to support a global payment ecosystem
With a focus on organic growth rather than acquisition, Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, operates in more than 200 countries, supports over 150 currencies, and processed over €1 trillion in global payment transactions in 2024. To continue this rapid growth without growing their team at the same rate, Adyen needed to streamline their approach to Identity. Adyen previously lacked a centralised Identity platform for their cloud-based apps, with employees logging in with usernames and passwords. This was time consuming both for users and for the IT team, which spent hours a day dealing with issues such as forgotten passwords. Additionally, onboarding and offboarding users to cloud apps was handled manually and led to delays. This could lead to inefficiencies in Adyen’s operations, as lingering access permissions might slow down business processes.
Adyen also had no way of securing its employees’ mobile phones, meaning it was unable to support access to cloud apps from such devices. Providing employees with mobile phones strictly for work would have been a big operational overhead, so Adyen needed a way to ensure personal mobile devices were secure. Having experienced zero security breaches since they were founded in 2006, Adyen was determined to maintain their excellent security record both for the benefit of customers and to comply with stringent financial regulations. To do so, they sought a robust, secure Identity platform that could scale with their growth.
Simplifying compliance with Okta
Adyen estimated that building their own centralised Identity solution would take around two years. Instead, they searched for an industry-leading Identity provider that could take care of their Identity and access needs, freeing them to focus on their core business.
As they searched for a provider, Adyen was impressed with how Okta could provide secure Single Sign-On (SSO) from mobile phones to all cloud-based apps. The extensive regulatory certification of Okta Workforce Identity also meant Adyen could comply with stringent industry regulations while saving the time of doing the lengthy certification process themselves, further increasing operational efficiency.
Enhancing security and efficiency with seamless access and automation
With Okta, Adyen has unified Identity, and through SSO granted 4,000+ employees secure, seamless access to more than 250 cloud-based apps with a single set of credentials. This means users no longer need to store different usernames and passwords. Additionally, almost 100% of those logins are now made with FastPass for phishing-resistant authentication with biometric user verification, reducing login times from 30 seconds per app to just three seconds per app. With the improved login process, Adyen can now also set shorter session time limits, resulting in more secure user sessions.
With Okta device assurance policies, Adyen allows employees to access cloud apps using their own phones, ensuring that those devices meet the configured security and compliance requirements before access is allowed. As for regulatory compliance, embedded reports in Universal Directory mean Adyen can quickly generate reports for auditors without having to log in to each app to export data, and they’ve also worked with Okta Professional Services to further harden their security profile.
Okta Workforce Identity has enabled Adyen to significantly increase efficiency by simplifying and automating Identity processes. They save time managing cloud-app access centrally, and by automating processes with Lifecycle Management and Workflows, employees can now be onboarded in just one hour, 99.6% faster than the 1.5 weeks it took previously. Adyen has also used Workflows to automate the Identity management processes in key cloud apps, eliminating manual tasks to save time equal to the work of 13 to 15 full-time employees. The company was also able to connect Okta with their Workday employee database in just 15 minutes, enabling them to sync employee data in real-time to keep access and permissions up to date.
Following their success managing Identity with their cloud-based apps, Adyen is now deepening its partnership with Okta as it works to centralise Identity management for their other applications, as well as testing Identity Threat Protection and managing Okta via Terraform to further increase resilience.
About Adyen
Adyen is a financial technology platform with over 4,000 employees that helps businesses grow. Their end-to-end payments, data, and financial management solution streamlines payments across online, mobile, and in-store channels, empowering merchants to increase revenue, improve efficiency, and expand globally.
