Walluf, Germany–OMNIKEY, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of innovative smart card readers, has been selected to provide the German Pension Fund (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund) with 35,000 smart card readers for their eGovernment project.

The OMNIKEY CardMan 3121 smart card reader, in combination with the Pension Fund’s employee ID card featuring digital signature function, will enable the government agency to implement efficient electronic processes utilizing its new IT system.

Digital signatures will replace handwritten signatures for approximately 150,000 routine tasks a month, which will now be processed without media discontinuities and without paperwork. The smart card is the key to these secure and integrated electronic business processes, for instance to handle over 600,000 pension applications a year.

The ultimate beneficiaries of the agency’s optimized internal operations are the German citizens. The Deutsche Rentenversicherung eService system enables German employees to apply for their pensions online, control and update their account information, and check on the amount they can expect to receive when they retire - all without leaving their home and without sending paperwork back and forth.

Every citizen can securely use these online services from their own PC. All it takes to access the system is a certificate on a smart card, obtainable from one of the accredited suppliers listed on the German Pension Fund’s website, and a reader, such as the CardManr 3121.

The Deutsche Rentenversicherung chose OMNIKEY as their smart card reader supplier following a tender. Among the reasons for their choice was the flexibility offered by OMNIKEY’s CardManr 3121 USB smart card reader, which will run on both Windows NT as well as on the newer Windows XP operating system, eliminating the need to change readers when the transition is made within the government agency. Additional reasons were the ergonomic design of the reader, its long life-cycle, and the possibility of customizing its color.

OMNIKEY, renowned for providing the most technologically advanced PC-linked smart card readers, was also chosen because it was able to deliver the large quantity of readers needed within a short timeframe. OMNIKEY offered its business partners a high level of support, enabling integration problems to be solved quickly and the entire project to be completed on time.

About OMNIKEY OMNIKEY, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of innovative smart card readers, offers the most diversified product portfolio available on the market today. OMNIKEY’s smart card readers for PCs can be utilized by any application including logical access control, digital signature, WLAN authentication, secure banking and online transactions, loyalty programs, and healthcare solutions.

Headquartered in Walluf, near Wiesbaden (Germany), OMNIKEY is part of ASSA ABLOY Identification Technology (ITG). OMNIKEY’s North American headquarters reside in Irvine, California with technical support in Atlanta, Georgia. The Asia Pacific operation is located in Hong Kong. Design, production management, and quality control of OMNIKEY’s products are carried out in the company’s two R&D centers in Linz, Austria and Erfurt, Germany. OMNIKEY readers are distributed worldwide through a global network of partners, including value added resellers, system integrators, and OEMs. For further information please visit www.omnikey.com.