a cardholder enters into a remote payment trans-action and requires his or her details to be trans-mitted to the merchant.

Consumers wishing to make remote paymentswill use a password to authorise the transmission(over the Internet) to merchants of the informa-tion held in the wallet.

The wallet is now being enhanced and furtherautomated to streamline the delivery of card-holder information that is required by the mer-chant. The wallet is consistent with the ThreeDomain Model for cardholder security, which Visais introducing for member banks across Europe(Ctt September 2000, p11).

The Visa/SACA Server Wallet in effect pro-vides an out-sourced service, releasing SouthAfrican banks from the need to develop theirown electronic wallet system to hold their cus-tomers’ cardholder details. Hilary Mitchell, vice-president for e-commerce at Visa International,said: “One of the biggest barriers to the devel-opment of e-commerce both in South Africa andworld-wide is consumer reticence to provide carddata over the Internet. The new server walletovercomes this reluctance because it offers a securemeans of cardholder identification in e-commercetransactions. For banks, there is the added attrac-tion of being able to lower the number of dis-puted transactions.”

Gerda Ventner, acting managing director atSACA, said:”The service…means that SouthAfrican banks will keep up to speed with evolv-ing world-wide authentication standards for e-commerce. We are currently working on furthere-commerce initiatives with Visa International,which will include the regional roll-out of theserver wallet.” Contact: James Wood at Visa International, Tel: +44 207 225 8127, e-mail: woodj@visa.com

E-commerce

Banksys to create secureInternet structure

Banksys, the systems house owned by theBelgian banks, has teamed up with US-basedGlobeset and Belgian software developerElement to create a secure Internet paymentarchitecture.

The system is intended to secure transactionson the Proton R3 bank smart card, which origi-nated with Banksys and is now used by some 30million consumers worldwide.

Globeset’s SET technology is to be customisedfor Banksys by Element; the new package will provide security for all three modes of smart card payment – E-purse (Pay Before),Debit Card (Pay Now) and Credit Card (Pay Later). The new system is based on four technology modules developed by Banksysengineers in partnership with Globeset andElement:

Consumer Module – This resides on the con-sumer’s PC. It consists of a smart card reader(the C-ZAM/PC developed by Banksys) and ‘thin’wallet software. This software will interface withthe other modules and is intended to provide a‘comfortable’ look and feel for an e-paymenttransaction.

Bank Module – This is the ‘e-wallet’ held at the card issuing bank. It contains all the con-sumer’s data, including valid cards and trans-action status.

Merchant Module – This is the server at the virtual point-of-sale. Its software is integrated into the merchant’s systems, to enable these to accept the Banksys paymentsystem.

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4 • Ctt October 2000

SET, CEC and the Three Domain ModelThe SET specification is an open technical stan-

dard developed by Visa and Mastercard to facil-itate secure payment card transactions over theInternet. Digital certificates are used to create achain of trust throughout the transaction, veri-fying cardholder and merchant validity. As andwhen banks issue smart cards to their customers,the CEC (Chip Electronic Commerce) protocolwill become available. This provides for a card-holder’s details and digital certificate to be heldon the customer’s smart card.

The Three Domain Model has been devolpedbyVisa for its member banks. In the AcquirerDomain, the acquiring bank defines the mech-anism whereby they satisfy themselves that theMerchant is genuine. In the Issuer Domain, thebank issuing the card authenticatesthat the card-holder is genuine and is using a valid card. Inthe Interoperability domain, transaction data isexchanged using a common protocol. Two pro-tocols are approved by Visa for the Three DomainModel - SET and CEC.

Acquirer Module – This runs at the site of thebank acquiring the transaction. It takes the pay-ment request, performs the payment and con-firms to the consumer and to the merchant thatthe transaction has been successfully completed.Contact: Marina De Moerlooze at Banksys, Tel: +32 2 727 6822,e-mail: marina.demoerlooze@banksys.be

City cards

Schlumberger opens firstBrazilian plant

Schlumberger is opening its first SouthAmerican card production plant, in Curitiba,Brazil, where it has already issued smart cards to30,000 residents.

Located in Pinhais, in the metropolitan regionof Curitiba, the Schlumberger plant has receivedan initial investment of US$5 million. The planthas been installed in the existing factory ownedby Cardtech, in which Schlumberger purchasedan 80% equity stake in 1999. The plant has beenrenovated to meet the security and technologystandards for smart cards demanded by Visa andMasterCard. It will produce both memory andmicroprocessor cards.

“Smart cards will grow exponentially from thecurrent base of 160 million cards in use in Braziltoday, as new applications come on stream,” saysUwe Ludke, sales director for Schlumberger inBrazil. “The banking sector alone will grow 20%per year in the short term.”

Overall, Schlumberger sees Brazil as a verypromising market. “Multinational investmentsare transforming the country into a developmentand production centre for high-tech products,such as mobile phones and PCs, and creating asignificant opportunity for the use of smart cards,equipped with programmable microprocessorchips.”

The practical application of Schlumberger’sapproach can be seen in the city of Curitiba itself,where residents and government employees are using the dual interface – contact and contactless - Schlumberger Easyflex City Card, for ID, for banking, as a payment card and fortransport ticketing.

The City card was first introduced in Curitibaat the end of 1997. At that time, 5,000 local gov-ernment employees were issued with smart cardsto be used as their professional ID card, and for

use in selected shops and supermarkets. (Alocal bank gives city employees preferential rates on financial services and on credit.) Some30,000 people now use the City card and an addi-tional 180,000 employees of the state govern-ment are due to be issued with the cards in thenear future.

The City card will be accepted as a means ofaccess to public transport at 2,500 points by mid-2001. Passengers who do not possess the full Citycard (with its ID function) will be able to buysmart card tickets at news kiosks and and at ter-minals. Initially there will be some 500,000 suchcards and this number will grow during the tran-sition from the present paper tickets to smart cardtickets. Curitiba’s population is 1.5 million.

Further applications are promised, says UweLudke. Patients at county health offices will usethe card to store the data that results from exam-inations and consultations. Parking applicationswill be added, as well as benefits such as mealtickets. Several projects to add new services tothe card, including its use in petrol stations andrestaurants, are under analysis.

The plant in Curitiba is Schlumberger’s eleventhsmart card facility worldwide; the company nowmanufactures chip cards in France, at other sitesin Europe, and in North America, Latin Americaand Asia. Contact: Dirk Hinze at Schlumberger Test and Transactions,Tel: +33 1 47 46 79 50, e-mail; hinze@montrouge.tt.slb.com

Point of sale terminals

Ingenico Fortronic doublessales in first half 2000

Ingenico Fortronic, the Scottish-based manu-facturer of point-of-sale payment terminals, hasachieved revenues in excess of £10 million in thefirst half of the year 2000.

Currently employing 200 people in the UK(140 of them in Scotland) Ingenico Fortronic isembarking on a major recruitment drive to accel-erate new product development and expand intonew markets. The company plans to increase itsengineering team by more than 20% and willalso be adding to software development, sales andmarketing staff.

As part of its continued growth strategy, IngenicoFortronic has invested GBP 400,000 in the rede-velopment of its UK head office in Dalgety Bay,

Ctt October 2000 •• 5

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