The London Branch of Mizuho Corporate Bank has become the first base customer to go live on the new SwiftNet messaging network Phase 2 upgrade with public key infrastructure (PKI) and hardware security modules (HSM).
The new security framework is based on the exchange of digital signatures and public key cryptography and is being introduced as part of a planned second phase migration to the IP-based messaging network SwiftNet.
Since SwiftNet Phase 2 began in January 2007, many customers have upgraded their infrastructure, says Swift, and the first customers began testing with PKI and HSM during January.
The Mizuho London branch was an active SwiftNet Phase 2 pilot and in February it became the first customer in the world to be live on FIN with both SwiftNet PKI and HSM.
While the first customers are going live with SwiftNet Phase 2, the roll out continues and shipment of the migration kit is on-going, says Swift.
A spokesman for Mizuho says: "Preparation is definitely key if you want the process to run smoothly. We would advise all users to ensure that they upgrade their operating system as soon as possible, and that they register SwiftNet Security Officers for all their live BICs."