NetPayTM interoperates with VeriSign

NetPay Interoperates With VeriSign SET CA

VERISIGN WORKS WITH SET LEADERS TO
MAKE SET CERTIFICATES A REALITY

Issues First SET Digital Certificates Under Visa Hierarchy
Demonstrates First SET-Compliant Online Cardholder Enrollment
Shows Interoperability with IBM, Maithean, VeriFone

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, January 27, 1997 - RSA Data Security Conference, San Francisco, January 27, 1997. VeriSign, Inc., the leading provider of digital certification services for Internet access and electronic commerce, today demonstrated its leadership role in the arena of Secure Electronic Transaction (SET), a specification for conducting secure transactions over the Internet. At the RSA Data Security Conference, VeriSign announced it has issued the first SET digital certificates under the Visa hierarchy. VeriSign also is demonstrating the first SET-compliant online cardholder enrollment, and is showing interoperability with IBM, Maithean and VeriFone applications.

VeriSign has met a major SET milestone for Visa International by demonstrating the first-ever online issuance of SET-compliant Visa-branded digital certificates. Visa selected VeriSign in July 1996 to develop and operate an Internet-based certificate processing service for electronic commerce based on SET. VeriSign will operate the digital certificate service for Visa who will make it available to Visa member financial institutions. These institutions will in turn make the service available to merchants and payment card customers wanting to take part in secure electronic commerce services.

"This is an important milestone on the path to delivering secure electronic commerce to our Members," said Steve Herz, senior vice president of electronic commerce at Visa International. "In addition, VeriSign has demonstrated interoperability which is key to the acceptance of SET by the market and to our Members as well."

The online issuance of SET-compliant certificates is also a milestone for SET. At the Conference, VeriSign is showing SET-compliant transactions running with IBM's Net.Commerce Payment electronic wallet. A SET-compliant Web transaction is expected to provide consumers with a higher level of confidence than in the physical world by authenticating the parties involved.

"IBM is pleased that VeriSign has highlighted the interoperability of the VeriSign-generated Visa-branded SET certificate with the functionality of the IBM Net.Commerce Payment electronic wallet. This cooperation emphasizes SET's bright future as it becomes the preferred secure way for payment cards to be used over the Internet. Using the CommercePoint family of products and services, IBM looks forward to proving interoperability with all components of our comprehensive SET solution with other SET participants in the near future," said Mark Greene, vice president, electronic payments and certifications, IBM.

In addition, VeriSign, along with SET leaders IBM, Maithean and VeriFone are pushing forward the SET standard by demonstrating interoperability. VeriSign is demonstrating the use of its Digital IDsSM with Maithean's NetPay SET Payment System, VeriFone's vPOS merchant software and IBM's Net.Commerce Payment electronic wallet. These players provide important software applications that create a secure shopping environment on the Web.

"Maithean is pleased to be working with VeriSign in the enablement of standards based secure electronic commerce," said Mark Wolfe, vice president and general manager, Maithean. "VeriSign's leadership in the support of SET CA services brings the industry one step closer to the deployment of SET based credit card payments on the Internet."

"Interoperability of SET digital certificates with payment applications is critical to accelerating the worldwide deployment of secure Internet payment services," said George Hoyem, VeriFone vice president and general manager, Internet commerce division. "VeriFone is pleased to be working with VeriSign on the roll out of SET-compliant products for Internet Commerce."

In a related announcement, VeriSign announced that it will be the exclusive provider of digital certification services for Novus. VeriSign will provide its SET-based Digital ID services for Internet use of all Novus card brands, including the Discover(r) Card, the Private Issue(r) Card and the BRAVO(r) Card. Novus will make digital versions of its credit cards, and the associated Internet-based infrastructure, available to its more than 40 million card members and more than two million merchants throughout the United States. Both Visa and Novus are VeriSign Private Label customers.

Stratton Sclavos, CEO and president, VeriSign, Inc., said, "This week's RSA Conference is the perfect way to start the new year, which VeriSign believes will be 'The Year of the Digital ID'. Through our announcements and demonstrations, we are showing people that interoperable, SET-compliant certification is becoming a reality."

SET: Enabling Secure Transactions Over the Internet
Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) is an Internet payment specification developed by Visa and MasterCard and several technology vendors that provides consumers and merchants with the ability to conduct payment card transactions over the Internet as securely and easily as they do in retail stores today. The SET specification calls for cryptographically-prepared digital certificates to be used as the virtual equivalent of plastic payment cards in electronic transactions. VeriSign, one of the consortium members and a leading provider of SET certificate technology, is working aggressively with companies like Novus and Visa to promote the SET standard through successful implementation. By enabling electronic shopping, SET brings tremendous benefits to consumers in the form of fraud reduction and consumer privacy. It helps the merchant by providing a standard way to easily implement this new and powerful technology.

VeriSign Service Offerings
VeriSign offers its certification services through the company's online Digital ID CenterSM, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week from VeriSign's secure operations center located in Mountain View, California. VeriSign's Public Digital IDs are available to all Internet consumers and businesses in ascending levels of assurance designated as Class 1, 2 or 3. These IDs carry the VeriSign brand which is quickly becoming the sign of trust on the Internet.

They are enabled in more than 50 Internet applications including market leading products and services from AOL, Netscape, Microsoft, and Oracle. VeriSign also offers Private Label Digital ID services built around customized versions of the Digital ID Center for Fortune 500 companies in the financial services, publishing, healthcare, and transportation industries. By working with VeriSign as a service provider, customers can leverage VeriSign's leading technology, infrastructure and practices to gain time-to-market, security and cost benefits while maintaining full control over their customer relationships and brand presence on the Internet.

About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. is the world's leading Internet Certification Authority, the trusted third party that authenticates, issues and manages digital certificates on the Internet. VeriSign Digital ID's enable trusted electronic commerce by authenticating the individuals, organizations and content involved in an electronic transaction. VeriSign has issued its Digital IDs to more than 14,000 web sites, 500,000 individuals and is delivering custom Digital IDs used for secure credit cards, brokerage account IDs, and membership access to corporations worldwide including Novus, Toppan Printing and Visa International. VeriSign, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., was founded in April 1995. The company is privately held and has been funded by strategic industry partners including Ameritech, AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, First Data, GemPlus, Intuit, Microsoft, Reuters, RSA, Security Dynamics, Softbank, and Visa.

Copyright 1997 VeriSign, Inc. 2593 Coast Ave., Mountain View, CA 94043. All rights reserved. VeriSign is a service mark and trade mark of VeriSign, Inc. Digital ID and Digital ID Center are service marks of VeriSign, Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. CommercePoint and Net.Commerce Payment are a trademark or registered trademark of IBM. vPOS is a trademark of VeriFone, Inc.

Contact:
Kelly Ryan, VeriSign, Inc.
Tel: (650) 961-7500
Fax: (650) 961-7300
Email: kelly.ryan@verisign.com

Julie Della Cioppa, Blanc & Otus
Tel: (650) 512-0500
Fax: (650) 512-0600
Email: jcioppa@bando.com

MAITHEAN, NETPAY, NETPAY PAYMENT SYSTEM , NETPAY WALLET, NETPAY MERCHANT, NETPAY GATEWAY, NETPAY CERTIFICATE MANAGER, NETPAY CSP and SECURETRANZ are trademarks of MAITHEAN. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Copyright 1998, MAITHEAN
MAITHEAN - SECURE ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
1032 ELWELL COURT, PALO ALTO, CA 94303
650.903.7050 | 650.938.8165 (FAX)

VERISIGN WORKS WITH SET LEADERS TO MAKE SET CERTIFICATES A REALITY

Copyright © 1997, VeriSign, Inc.

VERISIGN WORKS WITH SET LEADERS TO
MAKE SET CERTIFICATES A REALITY