•   Ability to settle Crest trades via secure connection to the bureau leads to huge reduction in operational risk

LONDON, 13th August, 2009 – SMA Financial (www.sma.co.uk), SWIFT Regional partner for UK, Eire, Channel Islands and the Nordics today announced that King & Shaxson, the specialist investment firm, has implemented RSA one time authentication tokens to provide secure access to the SMA Financial Bureau Service from any offsite location.  The solution has enhanced business continuity planning and strengthened Disaster Recovery (DR) procedures.

King & Shaxson has a DR plan that takes effect if an event occurs that affects its ability to operate normally.  If the situation persists for longer than four hours it moves operations onto a DR site.  Colin McLauchlan, Head of IT, King & Shaxson said, “Our challenge was to maintain business continuity during that critical four hour time period particularly with respect to trade settlement.  SMA recommended an alternative secure method of accessing the bureau using RSA tokens.  It gives us highly secure and flexible access to the Bureau Service infrastructure remotely from any offsite internet connection.”

The implementation process took less than two weeks.  SMA Financial installed the necessary software onto two laptops which are stored in an offsite location at all times and provided King & Shaxson with training and comprehensive documentation.  Using the RSA tokens and a pin code, users can access the SMA Bureau without using a fixed password – which could be vulnerable to key logging or other methods of password detection. The combination of a randomly generated token code and pin number ensure each sign-on attempt is unique.

King & Shaxson settle the majority of its trades on Crest and can now connect to SWIFT through the bureau from its production or DR site and from a remote location via its new connection option to the bureau. This setup provides an enhanced level of user authentication and security.

McLauchlan adds, “The ability to settle our Crest trades via a secure connection to the bureau from any offsite location has led to a huge reduction in our operational risk.  Based on the functionality, flexibility and ease of use I would recommend the RSA access solution to other companies looking for secure remote connectivity.  In fact I can’t see why a company connecting to the SMA Bureau wouldn’t want to use it as it reduces the risk of business interruption.”

Simon Murby, Managing Director of SMA Financial said “Each company has a need for a clear and effective DR policy.  We have helped King & Shaxson build on this concept by ensuring continuous secure access is available to the bureau from its fixed, DR and remote sites, thus offering maximum availability for their SWIFT connection.”