Thursday, August 20, 1998, 3:45 p.m. ET.
CyberCash Throws Out
Old Wallet
By JOHN EVAN FROOK
CyberCash Inc. has said it will abandon
client-side software wallets in favor of a
service model.
The E-commerce developer will
encourage its customers to migrate to a
more dynamic system that uses
server-side applications to deliver Java
applets to consumers in one-click
shopping applications.
CyberCash said the approach will mean
Internet retailers can convert more
visitors into buyers, while delivering to
banks ongoing relationships across
multiple sites.
The strategy marks an about-face.
CyberCash has long touted client-side
digital wallets as the vehicle for getting
digital certificates, or identifiers, into
consumer hands using the Secure
Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol,
but the payment technology has proven
to be a nonstarter. Among other things,
forcing consumers to download
multimegabyte-sized software and
configure it has proved too big a barrier,
analysts and executives admit.
Now, CyberCash is proposing an
automated payment interface supporting
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption
as a better option for consumer
payments, enabled by its new InstaBuy
service and Agile Wallet client software.
Experts still are cautious. Vern Keenan,
an analyst at Keenan Vision Inc.,
questioned whether merchants will be
willing to pay setup fees, monthly access
fees and between 10 cents and 30 cents
per sale to facilitate one-click buys.
That's over and above payment
processing costs already built into the
Internet sales equation, he said.
"InstaBuy solves some problems but
also leaves major questions on the
table,'' Keenan said. "It piles costs onto
the merchant.''
InstaBuy presents an opportunity for
visionary corporate strategists,
countered CyberCash senior vice
president Maureen Loftus. The greatest
benefit will be the ability of banks to
structure tighter relationships with
merchants, Loftus said.
CyberCash will release APIs for its
payment engines as part of InstaBuy's
commercial release in October, Loftus
said, enabling developers to write
applications extending affinity marketing
programs to the Web. Banks
conceivably could compensate
merchants for introducing customers to
banks, she added.
CyberCash said it expects to go to
market with a critical mass of the top
100 Internet retail sites and five selected
banks. |
