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SET for secure transactions. U.S. Treasury, Mellon Bank,
CyberTrust, IBM, Concentric Network, U.S. Navy, Visa &
Mastercard will run electronic commerce pilots.
By Ray Van Eng (07/29/97)
The U.S. government which has a mandate to make all federal
payments electronic by 1999 is beginning to implement electronic
commerce services to enable the public, and various government
agencies to purchase products and services over the Internet at
government web sites.
Starting in August this year, employees of Mellon Bank and the
Financial Management Service of the U.S. Department of the
Treasury will participate in a pilot that will allow them to use their
Mastercards to access the Bureau of Public Debt web site and
purchase U.S. Savings Bonds and to the Defense Reutilization and
Marketing Services online storefront to buy government surplus
equipment.
All transactions will be handled via the secure electronic transaction
(SET) protocol using digital certificates issued by GTE CyberTrust.
Concentric Network will provide project participants with Internet
access kits that has the IBM net.payment SET e-wallet software
pre-packaged.
Although SET was engineered by Visa, Mastercard and a group of
technology partners, other credit card companies such as American
Express, Diners Club, Novus and Air Travel Card have pledged
support and will incorporate the standard into their card products.
A spin-off from Visa and Mastercard, known as SetCo, will take
over the development of future versions of SET that will likely be an
integral part of smart card and debit card operations.
SetCo will also be responsible for the marketing management of
SET and perform compliant testing to qualify software firms,
merchants, financial institutions and web sites in order for them to
obtain the right to use a brand new SET logo which has recently
been unveiled.
As the federal government's controller and bookkeeper, the Financial
Management Service issues more than 850 million non-defense
related payments a year, collects more than $1 trillion of taxes
including all income taxes, and is responsible for the collection of
non-tax delinquent accounts.
Other government agencies such as the U.S. Navy will also begin
testing the e-commerce waters. A select group of Navy personnel
will be allowed to purchase ship supplies electronically from the
ServeMart web site.
Using a government issued Visa card, Navy purchasing agents can
query a database to find the right product, fill in an order form and
complete the transaction in a secure manner via the Internet.
The first phase of the project will become available in Pascagoula,
MS naval base. After the pilot ends by the end of October '97, the
Navy will decide whether to roll-out a full scale implementation.
Miller |
