Thales PaySentry and Accountis BACSactive-IP allows Conwy Council to make secure unattended BACS submission payments for payroll and Council Tax

Thales and Accountis today announced that Conwy County Borough Council is using their combined solutions for BACS payment submissions. Through the implementation of the Thales PaySentry hardware security module (HSM) and the Accountis BACSactive-IP, Conwy Council is taking the lead in migrating to the new highly regarded BACSTEL-IP service. As such it is benefiting from increased security and flexibility of BACSTEL-IP, as well as the automation of time consuming manual processing and associated cost savings.

In December 2005 the existing BACSTEL service will be discontinued. Rather than leaving the migration to BACSTEL-IP until next year, Conwy Council was keen to take advantage of the benefits of the new service as soon as possible – such as faster payment submissions and same day reporting.
Initially Conwy Council has rolled out the new system for payroll direct credit transactions and Council Tax direct debit instructions. By choosing the Thales PaySentry and Accountis BACSactive-IP solutions, Conwy Council has been able to make this migration extremely quickly and easily. At the same time the council is benefiting from specific advantages of the two solutions.

As Conwy Council needs to process large volumes of payments on a daily basis, there was a desire to be able to do this automatically as unattended submissions. BACS has mandated that for an organisation to make unattended submissions it must store all the cryptographic keys and processes within an HSM. As the first BACSTEL-IP-approved HSM, PaySentry is able to offer the highest levels of security within a tamper resistant environment.
BACSactive-IP allows thin client web-based access to the BACS process by many different users throughout the council without the need for smart cards at every workstation. This gives centralised control over the business payments workflow. In addition, Conwy Council is able to distribute secure files, such as invoices, within the council.

Conwy Council is already planning to roll the system out to other departments beyond Council Tax and payroll. The council also has plans to automate its entire procure-to-pay process using secure e-document exchange.

Phil Brooks, Principle Accountant at Conwy Council, said: “BACSTEL-IP offers several major advantages over the old BACSTEL system, particularly regarding the cost benefits of not having to manually process all transactions. The Thales/Accountis solution provides an extremely secure BACSTEL-IP submission system for our customers as well as other key business benefits for us. In addition we were extremely impressed by the speed and ease of integration meaning that we are now able to take maximum advantage of BACSTEL-IP long before the migration deadline.”

Paul Meadowcroft, head of transaction security of the e-Security activities of the Thales Group, said: "As the provider of the authentication system (SafeSign) at the heart of the BACSTEL-IP system, Thales is aware of the need for the highest levels of security of BACS payment submissions. It was for this reason that Thales introduced PaySentry to meet the BACS requirement for HSMs for unattended submissions. Conwy Council’s early adoption of BACSTEL-IP is a testament to the attraction of BACSTEL-IP.”

Dyfan Williams, commercial director of Accountis, said: “For Conwy Council, the move to BACSTEL-IP was more than a simple system migration. The Council was keen to take advantage of additional benefits that BACSTEL-IP can provide such as unattended submission. By choosing Accountis and Thales, Conwy has given its staff a truly flexible system that will not only save time and money for payment submissions but also provide other important benefits such as the increased security of other sensitive documents.”

About Thales
Thales is an international electronics and systems group, serving defence, aerospace, services and security markets. The group employs 61,500 people worldwide and generated revenues of 10.6 billion in 2003.

Operating in three main markets covering e-security, card payment and network security, Thales’ e-security activities address the business, government and finance industries’ need for cryptographic security products and solutions. Over half of the world’s banks, together with the majority of the busiest exchanges, currently use Thales technology. For more than 20 years the company has been at the forefront of security and payment technology, co-operating and contributing to set the industry standards used for financial transactions and e-commerce globally. Thales’ e-security business offers a wide range of security solutions to protect Government and Defence critical information infrastructures, thereby positioning the company as a leading worldwide supplier of certified network security products.