Remote key injection solution enables retailers to cost save and maximise flexibility of POS device management

Spencer Technologies and Utimaco have partnered, enabling retailers to outsource compliance audit obligations for key injection facilities and complex logistics of chain of custody

Aachen (Germany) and Campbell, CA (USA), January 9, 2023 – Utimaco, a leading global provider of IT security solutions, today announce their partnership with Spencer Technologies, the leading provider of end-to-end IT life cycle solutions for every type of major corporation in the retail market.

The duo has combined their technological and market expertise to deliver a highly secure and certified solution that reduces the burden of compliance for the management of millions of cryptographic keys deployed in thousands of point of sale (POS) payment devices.

The payments market is highly regulated to ensure the highest levels of trust and security across the ecosystem. POS devices must be pre-loaded with the cryptographic keys needed to safely process payments, which can only be done in a trusted environment by authorized key custodians in a secure way.

When new keys are needed, manufacturers, deployers, and security providers traditionally inject keys locally into a replacement device and then ship it to its destination for a scheduled service replacement visit. This is a time-consuming and complex operating model with a high total cost of ownership (TCO) compounded by rising supply chain costs, staffing constraints and PCI compliance guidelines.

To solve this problem, Spencer Technologies has integrated Utimaco’s secure and certified Keybridge key injection solution into its Remote Digital Services Portfolio. Spencer’s customers, that deploy thousands of POS and digital devices from multiple vendors and require millions of keys to be injected, can now fully rely on Spencer to deliver these services in a timely and cost-efficient way, while ensuring various PCI compliance mandates. By outsourcing compliance audit obligations and a complex, expensive operating model, retailers gain flexibility and resources to focus on their core businesses.

“In Germany, we have witnessed an outage of POS payment devices last year due to an issue with crypto certificates which caused major problems for several big retailers over a period of up to two weeks. A solution like the one Spencer is offering with our remote key injection technology could have prevented an outage of this scale, and we are excited to bring our expertise into the partnership with Spencer to help solve an issue that affects retailers all over the world,” said Jason Way, SVP of Payment Technologies at Utimaco.

He continued: “With the PCI mandate for Key blocks looming on the horizon, we believe many retailers will be interested in a solution that enables them to manage this transition smoothly.”

Theresa Borgerson, Chief Revenue Officer at Spencer Technologies, added “We are consistently finding our customers challenged with shipping costs and delays when returning their equipment for depot services. We are excited to partner alongside Utimaco to offer our customers the flexibility to continue to upgrade their technology through our secure facility, or by allowing Spencer to send encrypted keys directly to customers to inject through their estate management systems. The opportunity of the remote key injection solution will provide a great advantage to our customers offering easier integration and cost-saving processes for key injection and security as PCI mandates evolve.”