Bottomline Technologies (NASDAQ: EPAY), a leading global technology provider of Financial Resource Management (FRM) software and managed services, today announced the release of its WebSeries® bureau functionality and Hardware Security Modules (HSM). Both modules have been approved by BACS, the United Kingdom's automated payment clearing service.
HSMs allow businesses to make transmissions to BACS without local smart card authorization, which is very important for high-volume payers and collectors. High-volume users of BACS include the financial services sector, utilities, and public sector organizations, which combined collect over 80 percent of the 2.4 billion direct debit payments made each year in the UK. Uniquely, Bottomline's WebSeries product has been approved to support four different HSM manufacturers: nCipher, Chrysalis, Eracom and Thales.
The release and accreditation of the bureau module extends WebSeries' use to commercial bureau environments. It also allows Bottomline to reach businesses that make payments indirectly to BACS through third parties.
"Bottomline's decision to support four HSM manufacturers reinforces our dedication to providing our customers with the widest variety of solutions to support their business-critical migration to BACSTEL-IP. It was important to have our HSM solution released early, since high-volume BACS payment submitters are on an accelerated program to upgrade to BACSTEL-IP by March 2005," said Peter Fortune, president of Bottomline Technologies Europe. "Additionally, the new bureau solution allows us to reach the significant number of companies that use bureaus to connect to BACS."
"BACSTEL-IP provides major improvements for our business customers, giving them greater security and control," says David Sear, director at BACS. "The ability to automate transactions is extremely important for many of our clients. We have responded to this need with a series of security practices that reflect the critical nature of these systems. The deployment of Hardware Security Modules is the best approach for establishing certifiable levels of security in high-volume installations. BACS is delighted to approve Bottomline Technologies' WebSeries as the first solution to support four HSM manufacturers."
More than 60,000 companies use BACS to process payments, and will need to migrate to BACSTEL-IP by December 31, 2005. In addition, the high-volume payers and collectors who use the BACS messaging services need to transition by March 31, 2005.