Visa International is trialling the Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) protocol in the Asia-Pacific region but no trials are yet confirmed for Australia or New Zealand.
Daniel Jeffares, Visa’s Sydney-based New Zealand country manager, says that pilots are confirmed for Taiwan, Singapore and Japan.
“There’s the possibility of a pilot in Australia,” he says. “It’s really up to the member banks in New Zealand to determine if they want to proceed with a pilot.”
The lack of a local New Zealand office is not considered a barrier to a trial here, according to Jeffares.
“It really doesn’t have much implication in the sense we operate out of Sydney and yet we deal with Brisbane and so forth.
“It’s somewhat dependent on the software suppliers making available the SET-compliant software necessary to conduct a large-scale pilot.”
Singapore-based SET project director Danny Lo says the trials will be targeted at countries with developed infrastructures and Internet capabilities.
The final version of the SET protocol is scheduled for general availability in October 1997 and third-party software should also be available by then.
Visa is pushing for SET to become the standard for electronic transactions and is supported by Mastercard and American Express, which together, according to Lo, comprise 95% of the world credit card market.