MBA is leading the industry effort to develop a standardized contractual and technical infrastructure for electronic transactional security through its Secure Identity Services Accreditation Corporation (SISAC) subsidiary, and promotes integration with federal standards as they develop.

MBA recognizes that transactional security is critical for the broad-based adoption of eCommerce in the industry. Through SISAC, MBA and its industry members have developed open standards for providers of security and encryption solutions. SISAC has also accredited both providers of digital credentials and the auditing firms that confirm their adherence to standardized guidelines. Compliance with these guidelines provides confidence to trading partners that secure identities and their associated applications are interoperable. There is a nexus between the representation of identities in private commercial transactions and larger efforts to electronically establish or validate the identities of individuals, especially given concerns about physical security as a consequence of the events of September 11, 2001.

Over 2004, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) studied how it could create cross-government and "commercial" (meaning non-government) industry standards for secure identity, and formed a non-profit organization called the Electronic Authentication Partnership (EAP). MBA currently serves on the Board of the EAP. MBA is also monitoring legislative and regulatory developments in this area to ensure that there is convergence between the industry and federal standards, especially as set forth in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for the secure and transparent reporting of company information, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act for the securing of consumer data and information and the USA PATRIOT Act for denying support to terrorist organizations.