Ray Van Eng (12/01/97)
Entrust, a certificate authority (CA) will provide Entrust/Direct customers with digital certificates that are used to authenticate users and financial institutions to enable secure online transactions that will not require sensitive data such as account numbers, credit card details and other information to be sent over the Internet. While we are on the subject of investing, the SEDAR (System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval) database which has comprehensive financial information on Canada's publicly-listed companies is now available on the Internet at http://www.sedar.com. By the way, Entrust's parent company, Northern Telecom Ltd., the premier Canadian telecommunication equipment vendor, is working with England's Norweb Communications on a new way to allow people to get on the Internet using electrical wires. The power line to the Internet technology is said to be about a third or a half cheaper than cable modems from cable firms and ADSL services from telephone companies. Though intended for the European market at first, a new product is expected to become available in North America by late 1998. To safeguard Internet credit card shopping over the Internet, Royal Bank of Canada is implementing the Visa and Mastercard secure electronic transaction (SET) scheme using software from Verifone Inc. and IBM Canada Inc. The first to use the system is Proof in Advance Education Corp. which sells driving instruction audio-cassettes at its web sites. UUNET Canada will provide web site hosting, electronic commerce and Internet connectivity services. As a Royal Bank spokesman said, "We believe that as merchant and consumer confidence increases in electronic commerce there will be a world-wide explosion of payments on the Net.'' No doubt, many merchants can' t wait to see that happen. |