Note: Variant in this case means variants of the LMK pair. It does not mean the new TDES Variant encryption method.

The reason keys are encrypted under a variant is because:

1: It effectively increases the number of available keys. There are 9 variants and therefore the number of keys are effectively multiplied by 9.

2: It provides better key separation and therefore a customer can manage keys more efficiently.

Example:

Keys used with interchange bank 1 could all be encrypted under variant 1 of their LMK. Interchange bank 2’s keys could be encrypted under variant 2 of the same LMK, and so on.