ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996               TAG: 9602020058
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-5  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press 

MASTERCARD AND VISA AGREE ON AN ON-LINE PAYMENT PACT

The two leading credit cards - MasterCard and Visa - said Thursday that they have resolved their technical differences for assuring security of electronic payments over public computer networks like the Internet.

Netscape Communications Corp. and Microsoft Corp., software rivals vying to play the most important role in the Internet business, had lined up on opposite sides of the fight.

All four companies have agreed on a software standard, to be called Secure Electronic Transactions, for people and companies to accept credit card payments on the Internet's World Wide Web. They plan to publish its technical specifications next month.

GTE, IBM and security specialists Terisa Sytems and Verisign also played a role in the development.

The agreement may hasten the time when people feel comfortable making payments on-line. Few people now think it is safe to put credit card numbers on the Internet and other on-line systems because it is hard to guarantee that the data will be transferred only between the intended parties.

Visa and MasterCard had created different solutions to the problem and were lining up partners for support.

They finally got together last summer, but talks broke down in September when MasterCard and Netscape accused Visa and Microsoft of creating a data specification that would require royalty payments to them. Talks resumed a few weeks later.

``A single standard eliminates unnecessary costs and builds the business case for doing business on the Internet,'' Edmund Jensen, president and chief executive officer of Visa International, said in a statement.

Eugene Lockhart, chief executive of MasterCard, said the standard is a ``critical catalyst for electronic commerce.''

Under the standard, a person can send a credit card account number in a scrambled, or encrypted, form unintelligible to electronic thieves who pick off data as it moves across networks.

The merchant will have the ability to check its validity.

LENGTH: Short :   47 lines
ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC:  Chart by AP: Protecting cybercredit.