Germany's Postbank is using digital certificates from VeriSign to secure the mobile transactions of customers using an Apple iPhone.

Postbank iPhone customers will be offered VeriSign Extended Validation (EV) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates to secure their transactions.

Postbank has protected its website with VeriSign EV SSL since October 2007 and will expand its secure electronic transactional traffic with the new iPhone system.

When iPhone Postbank customers reach the authentic Postbank iBanking site, their Safari browser's address bar turns green, signalling they can conduct their transactions with confidence and that all data transmitted to the site will be encrypted.

The green address bar is valuable for mobile banking customers because identity thieves use phishing schemes to lure banking customers to look-alike web pages designed to steal account numbers, passwords and other sensitive information. Even the most convincing fraudulent pages though cannot replicate the colour of the browser's green address bar, said Postbank.

Michael Heinen, business unit manager of direct banking at Postbank, said, "With the launch of the VeriSign EV SSL Certificates for iBanking on the iPhone, we're taking a huge step forward in our efforts to build trust and reassurance for this fast-growing segment of our customer base."