724 Solutions and Certicom Team to Deliver First Open and Standards-based, Wireless PKI Solution for the Financial Services Industry - public key infrastructure - Brief Article

Wireless Internet, Sept, 2000

724 Solutions, an Internet infrastructure software developer for financial services providers, and Certicom, a provider of mobile e-commerce security, announced an agreement to provide wireless Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) solution to the financial services industry. This solution is unique in that it enables 724 solutions to provide support for a broad array of PKI products, services and technologies. 724 Solutions has contributed their expertise into Certicom's development of an open and standards-based security solution that enables secure communication and digital signatures via a variety of Internet-enabled devices, including PDAs, mobile phones, and pagers.

The announcement comes on the heels of a number of government acts -- such as the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce ACT (E-SIGN) passed by the US House of Representatives in June and set to take effect on October 1, 2000 -- which gives consumers and businesses the ability to close contracts with digital signatures.

The new wireless PM solution will provide financial institutions with the ability to offer consumers the confidence and convenience of performing secure anytime, anywhere high value transactions from a variety of Internet-enabled devices. This wireless PM solution enables consumers to digitally sign high value transactions -- such as mortgage agreements, opening brokerage accounts, buying insurance, and applying for credit cards -- without having to go on location to sign a piece of paper.

Digital signature verification (customer authentication) is the Internet equivalent of traditional handwritten signatures. PKI also impacts the retail world by enabling non-repudiation, permitting legally binding transactions to be performed in mobile and on-line environments. This assures the merchant of the end-user's identity, reducing fraud and expense for merchants and financial institutions currently enabling mobile offerings. The PKI portal solution enables 724 Solutions to interoperate with a wide range of existing PKI technologies and certificate authorities (CAs) including a seamless interface to VeriSign's Wireless Trust Services and Baltimore Technologies' UniCERT Certificate Management System.