BITS

Type:	Non-Profit Corporation
Founded:	1996
Country:	USA
Website:	BITS.org
Key People
Paul Smocer, President

BITS is the Financial Services Roundtable's technology policy division. It represents 100 of the largest financial services companies that provide insurance, investment products or banking services.

It was created in 1996 by the Financial Services Roundtable to better help its members understand and collaborate on new technologies.

BITS and ICANN

BITS has sent letters to ICANN following the publication of many of the organization's new gTLD programs, including the first, second, third and fourth versions. In late 2010, BITS threatened legal action against ICANN should it not defer the delegation of any financial TLD. Since that time, BITS has announced that it is working with the American Bankers Association to apply for financial TLDs. It has chosen to work with Verisign's registry services to provide technical back-end services to those extensions. Its gTLD application plans include a bid for .bank, and it will likely apply for a number of other financial related TLDs.

BITS has been vocal about what it deems as mandatory secuirty measure for any financially related gTLD. There are no specific measures stipulated in ICANN's Applicant Guidebook. ICANN's own Security Standards Working Group has made its own set of suggestions to ICANN on such requirements, and these have largely been endorses by BITS.