HSMs - Automate and duplicate

Our HSMs are secure, flexible
and scaleable

BACS requires companies to digitally sign their submissions using digital certificates. This ensures greater security, efficiency and control as well as better management information. Banks issue smartcards to employees of companies operating a Direct Debit Service to hold these digital certificates. However, a smartcard-based system doesn't always scale well, especially with high volumes of submissions.

There's no need to insert a smartcard into a reader or key in a PIN every time a digital signature is required. Access to BACS is still password protected and provided as a centrally operated managed service over our existing network. Staff can make submissions 24/7.

SmartDebit receives a full audit trail, so we can see who entered, verified and sent each submission. Our HSMs can support signatures for all sponsoring banks.

A more highly secure solution to create digital signatures is a Hardware Security Module (HSM). But because HSM systems can range in cost from £30,000 to several hundred thousand pounds, smaller organisations and bureaus may not have them in place.

As one of the leading Direct Debit Bureaus in the country, SmartDebit's systems use HSM devices. Our HSMs allow us to process debits without the need to manually upload and download files to BACS. They are highly scaleable: even if we grow the number of transactions submitted tenfold, the HSMs will still cope.