FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
InformationWeek
April 28, 1997, Issue: 628
Section: Top Of The Week
E-Commerce Security Gains -- American Express to
announce standard for electronic corporate
purchasing
By Clinton Wilder with Beth Davis
The promise of widespread credit-card use on the Internet
is edging closer to reality. An American Express-sponsored
initiative will announce next month a set of technology and
business-practice standards for companies to buy goods and
supplies over the Net. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard will
acquire VeriFone Inc., the world's leading Provider of
hardware and software for credit-card transaction
processing, for $1.15 billion in stock.
The American Express-sponsored Internet Purchasing
Roundtable will announce OBI-1, the Open Buying on the
Internet standard, which will include protocols for
qualified user profiles, client authentication, and catalog
formats.
With companies such as American Express and HP investing
heavily in Internet transaction infrastructure, backers are
hoping that online payments by both consumers and businesses
will begin to take off later this year or in early 1998.
Roundtable member companies plan to test the OBI-1 payment
standard over the next six months.
Members include purchasers such as BASF, Ford, National
Semiconductor, and United Technologies, and sellers such as
Office Depot and Staples. Technology vendors working with
the group include Actra Business Systems, Microsoft, Open
Market, and Oracle.
Pivotal to widespread acceptance of online payments is
the Secure Electronic Transactions protocol, a standard
backed by Visa and MasterCard that protects credit-card
payments as they traverse the Internet. The first iteration
of SET is slated to be released in June; a second version,
which may support additional encryption schemes, is expected
by year's end.
The combination of HP and Redwood City, Calif.-based
VeriFone, announced last week, could be a catalyst for SET
implementation. HP this week will announce the next version
of VirtualVault, software that protects legacy applications
and data from damage by Internet users. VirtualVault 2.0
does not support SET, but Ray Bamford, business manager for
VirtualVault, says it will add SET support sometime this
year.
