Big Blue Electric Money

Udo Flohr's timely article on "Electric Money" (June cover story) correctly points out the important role that secure payment mechanisms are playing in promoting electronic commerce over the Internet. As the article notes, IBM has held a leading role in this field, beginning with our original work on the Internet Keyed Payments (iKP) protocol, and more recently through our continuing collaboration with MasterCard and Visa on their Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) protocol. But I would like to make one important clarification: IBM's efforts have been dedicated to fostering secure commerce over the open public Internet, as well as over private networks. IBM was instrumental in getting Visa and MasterCard to merge Secure Electronic Payment Protocol (SEPP) and Secure Transaction Technology (STT) to come up with SET. Yo ur article mentioned only Microsoft and Netscape as SET technology partners. IBM is one of the leading providers of SET technology, having demonstrated working SET code at Internet World in April, and we will deliver SET-compliant solutions for consumers, merchants, and banks this fall. IBM is fully committed to SET.

Mark Greene
Vice President, Electronic Payments
IBM Internet Division