California-based secure trust solutions provider SSP Solutions has entered a partnership with Freestar Technologies to enable debit-based consumer cashcard payments via the Internet in Latin and North America.
The PaySafeNow solution bundles Freestar's ETSS (enhanced transactional secure software) technology with a secure card reader that connects the consumer's PC to the financial institution holding the consumer's banked funds. The reader is compatible with both magnetic-stripe and smart-card technologies, and utilises a secure numeric keypad to enter PINs and passwords.
Under the partnership, the two companies will each license and sell the other's products to their established customer bases.
The ETSS software is currently undergoing final tests in a pilot programme with Freestar's financial partner Banco Nacional de Credito, and will go live this week via the Internet portal enel.net. Initially, the programme will be rolled out to 2000 consumers in the Dominican Republic, with larger deployment scheduled for the spring of 2002.