Identrus and Swift Combine Trust and Secure Messaging Services for B2B E-Commerce; Financial Institutions Provide Businesses With Assured Identity and Non-Repudiation Over the Internet

Business Wire, Sept 13, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 13, 2000

Identrus(TM) LLC and SWIFT today announced their intent to form an alliance that will speed adoption of business-to-business e-commerce by providing non-repudiation for identity, signatures, and message delivery on the Internet. Based on Identrus' identity trust services and SWIFT's messaging capability, financial institutions worldwide will be able to provide their corporate customers with trusted messaging and certification services over the Internet.

Trust is essential between buyers and sellers when commitments are made over the Internet. Trading partners must know who their counterparty is, and need reliable proof that the transactions agreed to actually took place. Banks and financial institutions, more than any other entities, are best placed to offer these `trust' services to the business marketplace.

Identrus, founded by the worlds leading banks, has created a worldwide Identity Trust service delivered via banks and financial institutions that certify their corporate customers as trusted trading partners on the Internet under uniform rules, contracts and business practices.

SWIFT, owned by 3,000 member banks, has been providing secure messaging for the financial industry for more than 25 years and currently handles transactions worth more than 5 trillion USD per day.

The Identrus/SWIFT solution aligns Identrus' trust model with SWIFT's new Internet-based messaging service, TrustAct.

TrustAct enables banks to provide secure delivery and receipt of messages that corporates exchange on the Internet. In addition, TrustAct keeps a secure, consolidated log of corporate-to-corporate messages to provide non-repudiation of message delivery. This data, together with Identrus' non-repudiation of digital signatures, is essential for audit or dispute resolution purposes.

"This joint solution puts the global banking community at the centre of trust for e-commerce, building 100 percent on the existing relationships between banks and their corporate customers. It will provide an ideal platform to deliver additional e-trust services like ability to pay, payment authorization and creditworthiness" said Jaap Kamp, Senior EVP of ABN AMRO and Chairman of SWIFT.

Identrus President and CEO Guy S. Tallent said, "SWIFT and TrustAct give our banks, financial institutions and their customers a way to reap the enormous benefits of the Internet. Financial institutions and trading partners, especially in high-volume electronic marketplaces, need secure message delivery and convenient accessible records of their transactions as provided via TrustAct."

SWIFT CEO Leonard H. Schrank added, "With Identrus, our members and their customers gain access to the best global certification scheme, and at the same time, leverage a service they've come to depend on for security and reliability. Working with Identrus enables all our members to generate new business opportunities in the `e' world and puts them at the centre of trust. After all, they know their customers best."

The Identrus/SWIFT solution is being demonstrated at Sibos, SWIFT's annual conference and exhibition, which is being held this year from September 11 to 15 in San Francisco. An operational pilot will start by year-end, and the live solution will be made available to corporate customers through their own financial institution throughout 2001.

About Identrus

Identrus, announced in April 1999, for the first time enables businesses to manage their business-to-business e-commerce risks through a trusted relationship with their financial institution. Identrus also enables corporate trading partners to eliminate the time, cost and complexity of building trust relationships with counterparts around the world. Identrus' legal and technical infrastructure is based on a set of uniform system rules, contracts and business practices for comprehensive trust and risk management. Identrus was founded by ABN Amro, Bank of America, Barclays Bank, Citibank, Chase, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, HypoVereins Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland. The infrastructure is open to financial institutions, their corporate customers and security vendors around the world. For more information, please visit www.identrus.com

About SWIFT

SWIFT is the bank-owned co-operative supplying secure messaging services and interface software to 7,000 financial institutions in 190 countries. SWIFT's global network carried over one billion messages in 1999. The average daily value of payment messages on the SWIFT network is estimated to be above USD 5 trillion. SWIFT provides messaging services to banks, broker-dealers and investment managers, as well as to market infrastructures in payments, treasury, securities and trade. These services help customers reduce costs, improve automation and manage risk. Please find more information about SWIFT on our website: www.swift.com.