CardBASE Customer Case Study
Customer: Prominent European Central Bank
To deliver a robust solution to facilitate secure transactions for one of Europe’s leading central banks across the BACS network
Summary
BACSTEL-IP is a new delivery channel that has been introduced as part of the Banker Automated Clearing Services (BACS) technology renewal programme. This new channel provides BACS customers with a secure, and direct online telecommunications access to BACS. CardBASE developed a secure smart card issuance solution based upon its flagship solution MASCOT, to facilitate the processing of secure transactions for one of Europe’s leading central banks across the BACS clearing house network.
CardBASE has delivered its powerful smart card management system MASCOT by combining PKI and digital signature technology through smart card delivery.
How the Solution Works
A select number of employees (card holders) from participating banks and government departments are assigned cards for the purposes of accessing the BACS system. Each of these cards contain a digital certificate of a selected bank employee with the authority to access the network, containing the cardholders specific details and digital signature.
The MASCOT solution facilitates the secure management and loading of the life cycle of digital certificates onto smart cards. Within the BACSTEL-IP network, these smart cards are issued by the sponsoring banks (that utilise the system for processing various cash transactions) to a discrete user base.
Each card holder/user must first login to the system with a smart card containing the required digital certificate and verify their private key by entering a private PIN each time. This unique ‘PIN’ signs all actions before sending the encrypted instructions through the BACS network. The digital certificate is used to sign the transaction and this ensures the integrity of the institutions flowing within the system.
Technical Partners
CardBASE worked with a number of different groups in delivering this solution. Among them, Entrust who provided the Certificate Authority services necessary to
Generate the digital certificates for cardholders. Other key technical partners include Datacard who provided the desktop personalisation devices and Safenet provided the smart cards to form the total solution.
MASCOT Product Solution
The MASCOT product solution is deployed on Microsoft Windows 2003 and using Oracle database technology.
Solution Benefits
The solution offers a number of benefits:
- The solution seamlessly supports the BACSETL IP network delivering a highly secure authentication solution.
- Utilising smart cards ensures non-repudiation across the spectrum of possible transactions assuring security, control and compliance.
- Enables designated banking personnel to safely and securely issue and manage smart cards to support the ongoing activities based on the BACSTEL-IP network.
Comments
Don Stapleton, Sales and Marketing Director of CardBASE Technologies remarked “The delivery of this Smart Card based PKI solution is further evidence of CardBASE’s pedigree in developing innovative card management solutions and delivering increased levels of corporate security. We feel that the demand for token- based authentication solutions will continue to grow as the need to secure financial transactions based payment systems becomes of increasing importance”.
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Solution Partners:
List if of Solution Partners involved in the delivery of the project:
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