News

UK's Post Office using IP for banking transactions

March 2, 2004

LONDON - The UK's Post Office will use IP-based technology to encrypt basic banking transactions at more than 16,500 postal branches.

Link, the UK's national ATM network, is providing 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.

According to a report in ComputerWeekly, the Post Office launched its basic banking services last year as part of a move by the government to deposit benefit payments directly into claimants' bank accounts electronically.

Link expects to receive and process about one million electronic transactions each month from the Post Office, which provides a basic banking service at its branches. Customers of many banks and building societies can withdraw cash, or check their balances over the counter, free of charge, using their bank cards and PINs.

According to a Thales news release, Thales partner P&C Communications helped Link design the encrypted network, which consists of Thales' Datacryptor 2000 devices on both Link's and the Post Office's computer networks, ensuring that all data between the two networks is automatically encrypted.

P&C Communications also provided project management and technical expertise during the installation as well as technical support and personnel training during the post-installation process.

Post Office Counters' IT is run by Fujitsu Services, formerly ICL, under a £650 million (U.S. $1.2 billion) contract which will run until 2010, according to ComputerWeekly.

An earlier attempt by the Post Office to modernize benefits payments cost the taxpayer about £1 billion (U.S. $1.8 billion) 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 its failure.