The South African Certification Agency (SACA) and Netlife, software provider for banking and SET applications, have announced a co-operation agreement that aims to offer e-business customers a bundled solution.
SACA`s MD Tim Ellis elaborates: "We view our business partnership with Netlife as a significant step towards developing a global market for SET implementations. It [the partnership] gives us a formidable competitive advantage to offer a complete SET solution to banking institutions, locally and internationally."
In line with this move, Netlife SA`s MD, David Wheeler, announced that the company has revised its primary software models, which effectively reduces the overall cost of entry into the virtual marketplace. The company is involved in several operability tests which Wheeler hopes will "strengthen everyone`s comfort levels" in this regard.
This is aimed mainly at overcoming the industry`s seeming reluctance to embrace e-commerce; a reluctance that is born of traders` wariness of electronic transactions. The Netlife/SACA partnership hopes to eliminate this element of doubt by promising customers secure electronic communications and transactions.
Of SA`s "Big Five" financial institutions, ABSA, Boland and FNB have produced documents in which they formally support and endorse SET. Ellis believes the other two will go the SET route in due course.
Wheeler confirms that as a value-added feature, Netlife products integrate into and are interoperable with other solutions` gateways. He also highlights the concept of one of Netlife`s new products, the server wallet. Traditionally, an e-customer would have to download a fat server wallet that stayed resident on the hard drive of one`s computer. This meant that e-commerce could only be carried out from one specific location.
With server wallet technology, however, all customers` electronic wallets are stored on a server, and on request, are sent to clients in thin form, as a 75Kb cookie. This means that virtual shopping through SET certified gateways can be done from anywhere in the world. It also means that banks no longer have to distribute security software as part of online banking/shopping transactions, and also are no longer responsible for maintaining customer wallets.
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