Certifier

To become a part of the Account Aggregator Ecosystem, FIPs, AAs and FIUs need to adhere to Technical Standards prescribed by ReBIT. Sahamati has made this process easier by providing access to a set of tests that all AA ecosystem participants may use, to check their adherence to ReBIT tech standards. Sahamati has empanelled organisations that wish to provide independent certification services to members of the AA ecosystem.

Benefits of Becoming
Sahamati Certified

  • Technical guarantee of compliance with ReBIT standards.
  • Independent and impartial process, through a set of common certifiers that all ecosystem participants use.
  • Building trust in the ecosystem, in the minds of citizens using the services of AA ecosystem participants.

Empaneled Certifiers of the AA
Ecosystem

In addition to providing a conformance assessment framework, Sahamati also empanels organisations that wish to provide independent certification services, to members of the AA ecosystem.

See the list of empanelled certifiers offering Certification Empanelled certifiers Next Icon See the list of Certified Entities in the Account Aggregator Ecosystem Certified Entities Next Icon

Tests Covered in the
Sahamati Certification Framework

  • API schema conformance
  • FI (Financial Information) schema conformance
  • Security specification conformance (Specifically in the areas of API access authorisation, non-repudiation and data-in-transit security controls)
  • Tests verifying the integration of AA ecosystem participants’ systems with a Central Registry.

Central Registry

In addition to providing a conformance assessment framework, Sahamati also empanels organisations that wish to provide independent certification services, to members of the AA ecosystem.

  • An API for accessing information such as endpoint addresses, URLs and public keys of ecosystem participants – this is useful for AAs, FIUs and FIPs to seamlessly discover public information necessary for interoperable communication.
  • An API for getting a short-lived dynamic, API access token, with a set of standardised claims – this is useful for AAs, FIUs and FIPs to authenticate participants connecting to their APIs.
Learn more about the Central Registry Learn more about the Central Registry Next Icon

Standard Elements of the Sahamati
Certification Framework

Test Plan

All empaneled certifiers are expected to write test toolkits that adhere strictly to the Sahamati Test Plan. The toolkit should not add or remove test scenarios, on its own. Any suggestions for improvement to the test plan are welcome and should be sent to Sahamati directly.

This Test Plan is a collection of test scenarios, grouped by FIP, FIU, AA participant roles.

The purpose of the Test Plan is to provide a common, technical basis for assessing and guaranteeing interoperability of the certified entity with other participants in the ecosystem.

The empaneled certifiers must contribute their time to ensuring the Test Plan is kept current and aligned with any changes published by the standards authority, from time to time. Their toolkits consequently also must be kept up-to-date with the Test Plan.

Validity of Assessment

The assessment of conformance is done for a particular version of the ReBIT Technical Specification and as per the scope defined in a particular version of the Sahamati Certification Framework.

The certificate awarded, post the assessment, is valid till the time one of the following events happen:

  1. The Technical Specification version is sunset by the standards authority (i.e. ReBIT), following the release of a new version
  2. The Sahamati Certification Framework version is sunset by Sahamati following the release of a new version of the Certification Framework.
  3. The certified entity implements a newer version of the Technical Specification, in production, in advance of the previous version being sunset
  4. The certified entity makes any change to the code – bug-fixes, feature changes, in production.

Any change to an existing version, whether major, minor or a bug-fix, is deemed to be a “new” version – for now.

When the Test Plan is upgraded to be able to check backward and forward-compatibility of implementations of the standard, the validity of conformance assessment will remain unaffected by minor- or bug-fix changes to a version. 

Certified entities will then have to go through a re-assessment only when a major version change is announced by the standards authority.

The certificate awarded thus, will NOT have a validity expiry date. It only indicates the VERSION of the technical standard that the entity conforms to.

Frequency of Re-Certification

Once assessed, a certified entity needs to undergo a re-assessment only when one of the four events, as mentioned above, is detected.

Events #1 and #2, i.e. the sunset of the ReBIT Technical Specifications or the sunset of the Sahamati Certification Framework, are detected based on dates published by ReBIT / Sahamati in advance.

Events #3 and #4, i.e. changes made in production by entities, are detected based on a periodic self-test done by each certified entity, as described below. If the self-test fails and the reason for the same is traced to one of the two types of events (#3 and #4), a recertification run is required to be performed.

Frequency of Self Test

Periodicity: Quarterly

Process: Declaration of production environment compliance by TSP/FIU/FIP/AAs + re-run against the empaneled certifier’s testing tool.

A time-triggered frequency of continued compliance (not needing re-certification but just a self-test-driven submission of reports and a declaration) is required, as part of the Sahamati Certification Framework.

This involves each certified entity running the empaneled certifier’s tool, on a quarterly basis, in the environment dedicated to running the certification. (As of now, this is a UAT environment).

In addition, the certified entity must declare, on a quarterly basis, that the production environment has the same code as the environment in which certification has been done.

The benefit of this process is to help participants detect if any changes made to production systems have resulted in breakage in the code that grants compliance to technical standards. The Test Plan’s scenarios, if successfully passed, provides a guarantee that there are no non-compliances introduced on account of new changes in production code.

Liability

The Sahamati Certification Framework acts as a strong supplement to the ReBIT Technical Standards and provides assurance of interoperable API communication. This framework is built and maintained with the active participation of the community of Technology Service Providers and empaneled certifiers.

It thus confers the following benefits:

  • Avoidance of downstream costs and efforts of issue-resolution for developers, if they occur in a “live” environment
  • Avoidance of reputation loss, owing to issues resulting in denial of service to customers
  • Mitigation of compliance risks arising due to customer grievances or disputes from other ecosystem participants

However, neither Sahamati nor the empaneled certifiers or the intermediate certified entities, bear any liability for interoperability issues that may still arise, post the conformance assessment.

 

Intermediate Certified Entities

Sahamati also provides participants the choice of getting certified through a Technology Service Provider (TSP) who act as Intermediate Certificate Entities. An Intermediate certified entity is one that is itself certified by one of the empaneled certifiers and is further qualified to offer a pre-negotiated certification service. When you take the help of a TSP of your choice for certifications:
Reduces time and effort to negotiate directly with certifiers

Reduces time and effort to negotiate directly with certifiers

Makes it easier to carry out the technical tasks during the tests with the TSPs support

Makes it easier to carry out the technical tasks during the tests with the TSPs support

Solutions by Sahamati

Use the following services offered by Sahamati to seamlessly integrate the AA
framework within your organisation.

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Sahamati Certification Framework

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Central Registry

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Dispute Management System

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Additional Resources

FAQs

We strongly recommend that FIP/AA/FIU get their implementation certified. It guarantees interoperability, enabling FIPs and FIUs to seamlessly connect with a network of AAs (and vice versa).

Yes, this is left to the TSP’s choice. However, the certificate awarded by one empaneled certifier cannot be deemed as valid by another certifier. The TSP has to be certified separately by each empaneled certifier it engages.

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