The Post Office is to use internet protocol-based
technology to encrypt basic banking transactions at more than
16,500 Post Offices in the UK.
The cash machine network Link will provide the service to the Post
Office using encryption technology from electronics and IT services
provider Thales, with which it has signed an initial three-year
contract. Link will process the Post Office transactions over its
ATM network.
The Post Office launched its basic banking services last year as
part of a move by the government to pay benefit payments directly
into claimants' bank accounts electronically.
The encryption technology will be used to receive and process about
one million electronic transactions each month from the Post
Office, which provides a basic banking service at its
branches.
The technology encrypts all the IP data on the Link network using a
3DES algorithm, in what a Link spokesman described as a
"belt-and-braces" approach to security.
Post Office Counters' IT is run by Fujitsu Services, formerly ICL,
under a £650m contract which will run until 2010.
An earlier attempt by the Post Office to modernise the benefits
payment cost the taxpayer about £1bn when it ended in failure.
A National Audit Office report on the project cited divided
leadership and insufficient attention to technical details as
contributing to the collapse of the project.