Ray Van Eng (08/27/97)                

In testing leading edge technology, it is quite often the little guy who is a pioneer. This is true in Europe regarding the deployment of the Visa and Mastercard secure electronic transaction (SET) protocol for safe Internet shopping.

Just before the end of 1996, the Danish Payment Systems (PBS) conducted the first ever live SET protocol transaction and later interacted with Europay Norway to complete the world's first cross-border SET payment.

After all that initial e-commerce activities, other European countries such as Switzerland, Spain, England, Ireland among others are now reportedly have some type of SET projects going or in the works.

The French, well known for its wide-spread smart card usage is linking up chip card technology with SET for use in a project known as E-comm to be introduced to thousands of households in October 1997. Smart card maker Germplus, Visa, France Telecom and others are involved in the project. There are currently about 25 million smart cards in circulation in that country.

To promote safe electronic shopping in Germany, a country with about four million Internet users, Europay International, Commerzbank AG and Karstadt, Europe's largest department store chain are working together to launch a pilot involving the use of 1,500 Eurocard-MasterCard cards.

To entice small and medium sized German retailers to join the Internet commerce revolution, Commerzbank is collaborating with Electronic Mall Bodensee to allow consumers to use their Eurocard-MasterCards to purchase merchandize from specialty shops at the Lake Constance area, a popular tourist resort area in southern Germany, bordering between Austria and Switzerland and about 50 miles from Zurich and Liechtenstein.

Louis-Noel Joly, Director and CEO at Europay International, said, "Germany's participation in a SET/Eurocard-MasterCard pilot is absolutely key not only because it boasts the biggest number of Internet users across Europe but also as it is an advanced market in terms of payment systems. With more and more SET pilots taking off around Europe, we are confident that cross-border transactions on the Internet will become common place in the near future."

Europay International, based in Waterloo, Belgium, currently has more than 151 million cards in circulation including such brands as Cirrus, Eurocard-MasterCard, edc/Maestro and eurocheque providing customers with credit, debit and ATM cash services.

Europay is actively working with Mastercard International to expand the geographic reach of their payment program so as to enable Eurocard cardholders to make purchases at merchant locations not only in Europe but around the world also.