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Identity & Payments Made Simple — The Key to eCommerce
Originally published: 17 September 1999
Guaranteeing Identity and Secure Payments: The Foundation for eCommerce
The explosive growth of the Internet promises much. Organisations can extend their reach to hundreds of millions of new and profitable customers. Unfortunately, a powerful brake is holding back the growth of eCommerce: Distrust. Fear is firmly fixed in the minds of businesses about the true identity of parties on the Internet. Simultaneously, consumers fear sending sensitive personal and financial information over an open and insecure Internet. Both these fears are fuelled by regular press reports of fraud by criminals and easy intrusion by hackers. And with no viable, ready-to-market, bank-led solutions to turn to, these reports continue to discourage millions of businesses and consumers from buying through this inexpensive and already available sales channel.
For Business-to-Business eCommerce to thrive, a means of guaranteeing the identity of the parties on the Internet is a mandatory requirement. Moreover, for Business-to-Consumer eCommerce to thrive, consumers must be confident and have access to a proven, economically sound secure payment system — one that the banks can trust, is cost-effective for sellers, and is mobile while easy to use for buyers. Ultimately, digital trust capable of assuring the irrefutability of any Internet transaction is essential.
Unicate believes that E*MERGE powered by 3DAS provides the answer. Not only does this new technology give complete security, it is portable, providing a cost-effective method to authenticate the identity of each party in a transaction anywhere on the Internet. Being intuitively obvious for the buyer to use, user confidence is maximised.
E*MERGE powered by 3DAS provides the perfect identification and secure payment system for everyone to securely trade over the Internet.
Why is E*MERGE Powered by 3DAS Superior to Other Solutions?
A number of companies and consortia have attempted to assure authenticity using Smart Cards. Others propose digital certificates locked inside insecure PCs. From this work, SET — “Secure Electronic Transaction” — has been proposed. However, SET is not the answer. It is generally agreed that SET will impose a costly and unacceptable cryptographic computational burden. Nor is SSL a solution: it is only a line encryption system between two points and simply cannot secure sensitive information inside a PC or merchant server.
Some propose adding a Public Key system on top of SSL. However, as with SET, this demands a single, global, legal and technical Public Key certification infrastructure. Even if anyone would be willing to accept the cost of the incremental computational power required in PCs and Internet servers to unravel each cryptographic level of hierarchy, these software-based solutions do not offer mobility. Hence, no other system can offer the security and cost-effectiveness that E*MERGE and 3DAS does.
For eCommerce to prosper, corporations, merchants and consumers demand an easy to use, mobile and inexpensive means of proving identity and transacting payments. This is precisely what E*MERGE — powered by 3DAS — can deliver.
Why 3DAS?
3DAS is the simple solution for creating a cost-effective and secure Internet transaction and payment system. It gives the card issuer, acquiring bank and seller a proven Card Authentication Method (CAM). Unicate has demonstrated that a 3DAS CAM cannot be reproduced and that transactions digitally signed by a 3DAS Card are irrefutable. More importantly, rejection of a legitimate buyer is near impossible. 3DAS also eliminates the need for the expensive security hardware required by the Cardholder Verification Method (CVM) for PIN. 3DAS therefore provides a secure off-line CAM and CVM to protect MasterCard, Visa and Amex cards.
3DAS offers:
- Cardholder (buyer) Authenticity
- Buyer Mobility
- Payment Data Confidentiality
- Seller (merchant) Authenticity
- Transaction Irrefutability
- Transaction Integrity
3DAS is the easiest to use and most cost-effective solution to credit and debit card security. To implement, the buyer simply installs a 3DAS “Plug and Play” reader and the issuer adds the 3DAS authentication and personalisation modules to their system. The result is data integrity, data confidentiality and transaction irrefutability.
Why E*MERGE?
Based on 3DAS and the work done to combat card fraud, Unicate created E*MERGE — Unicate’s transaction and payment solution for the Internet.
Benefits to Banks
- Banks can profit from the growth in eCommerce and extend their full range of electronic payment products into this environment.
- Banks can cost-effectively and securely introduce on-line PIN and debit cards for Internet payments without the need for expensive cryptographic technology.
- Banks need not alter their existing EFTPOS networks and systems.
Benefits to Sellers
- Sellers can offer customers a proven, universally accepted and mobile secure payment solution without the need to invest in proprietary hardware or infrastructure.
- Sellers benefit from reduced fraud liability and charge-back risk through strong cardholder authentication.
- Integration is straightforward — E*MERGE requires no changes to existing merchant systems or back-end payment processing.
Benefits to Buyers
- Buyers gain a simple, mobile and universally available method to authenticate themselves and transact securely on the Internet.
- Personal and financial information is never exposed over the network.
- The 3DAS “Plug and Play” reader is easy to use and works with existing payment cards.
E*MERGE was developed by Unicate BV in partnership with PA&A. This document was originally published on 17 September 1999 and is preserved here as part of the historical record of early secure Internet payment systems. See also: Unicate | An Alternate to Smart Cards – 3DAS