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October 15, 1997, Section:

IBM Gets SET For Secure E-Commerce

By Charlotte Dunlap

ARMONK, New York -- IBM is backing another major Secure Electronic Transaction-enabled electronic commerce trial, saying its technology now supports 50 percent to 70 percent of the country's electronic credit card transaction traffic. IBM announced a deal to provide CompuServe Network Services with Web-based commerce software to support online merchants and payment card processors with support. IBM already is involved with another similar relationship with First Data.

The IBM software, called CommercePoint Gateway, provides immediate authorization to credit card payment requests made over the Internet.

Now, however, once consumers make a purchase at a Website, the credit card or debit card is not authorized right away. The technology's efficiency is based on the SET protocol, said Scott Dueweke, marketing manager for electronic payments and certification at IBM. SET provides encryption features as well as digital certificate technology to the merchant servers in an effort to secure the customer's credit card information.

IBM officials said today's security technology -- SSL, from Netscape Communications -- only includes encryption features.

"Digital certificates are what makes SET great," Dueweke said. "When you get your credit card, your issuing bank issues you with a digital certificate that's housed in an electronic wallet on your hard drive that enables merchants doing business with you to know you're who you say you are."

IBM's CommercePoint Gateway product is now being used in more than 40 pilots worldwide to support the electronic transactions between merchants and banks.

CompuServe Network Services provides electronic connectivity to hundreds of banks that do credit card processing for merchants.