Europay is to begin pilot trials of a fee-based remote digital wallet hosting service for European banks.
The Remote Wallet service enables issuing banks to offer a secure e-commerce environment to their Eurocard-MasterCard and Maestro cardholders but with minimal investment, says the European card payment organisation.
Europay provides the technological platform, which is accessed by banks on a pay-per-use basis. This means no start-up or infrastructure costs. The bank however, remains in control and is able to access its cardholder data and parameters in real time.
Only a compact wallet is downloaded to the user PC (or other device) to manage communication between the cardholder and the remote wallet. Similarly, Europay is attempting to simplify the back-end infrastructure development by launching a Remote Acquiring Facility for banks and their merchants.
Based on the 3D-SET protocol, the new service promises to deliver all the security benefits of the credit card-directed Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) standard, but without the implied costs of SET implementation, says Europay.
Starting in November, Europay will pilot the service with six banks in five European countries, totalling over 100,000 cards.
Javier Perez, general manager, business division at Europay International, comments: "We are committed to adding value to this Hosting Service in 2001, by piloting the reloading of mobile phone pre-paid cards, which will further help banks to move forward in the e-Business environment."