London, Sep 27 (IANS): Digital security firm Gemalto on Wednesday launched a new payment hardware security module (HSM) for banks, which is being touted as the industry's first to include partitioning as an advanced security feature.

Traditionally, banks and other payment providers used an individual HSM to secure each payment operation or transaction application.

The new feature titled "SafeNet Luna EFT Payment HSM" uses a single HSM platform that can be separated into multiple virtual HSMs to support multiple security applications and protect sensitive payment information.

"By adding partitioning to the 'SafeNet Payment HSM', we are enabling our customers to reduce hardware, improve Cloud usability and decrease transaction processing times, all the while maintaining the same level of security required by the financial industry," said Todd Moore, Senior Vice President, Encryption Products, Gemalto, in a statement.

The new capability simplifies cryptographic operations and allows financial institutions to encrypt more data and protect a wide range of transactions without having to deploy multiple HSMs.

Earlier this year, Gemalto launched "SafeNet Trusted Access", an access management and identity protection service to secure Cloud and on-premise applications for companies to implement secure, conditional access and additional authentication levels.