Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 13:20:02 -0500 From: reagle@rpcp.mit.edu (Joseph M. Reagle Jr.) To: reagle@rpcp.mit.edu Subject: Australia's Advance Bank Promises Christmas Ecash 10/25/96

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 1996 OCT 25 (NB) -- By Stuart Kennedy, Computer Daily News. Come Christmas, electronic cash should begin jingling around the Australian side of the global Internet. The Sydney-based Advance Bank has signed on for Netherlands-based DigiCash's "Ecash" system and expects to be issuing Australian denominated Ecash by the end of the year.

The deal puts Advance a further step ahead of its Australian rivals in the Internet-based banking transaction game. Most other Australian banks are still dabbling with information-only Web pages while Advance has been offering its customers Internet-transacted account information, account transfers, bill payments and now Ecash.

It also makes Advance the first bank in the Asia Pacific region to employ an Internet-based digital money system and Australian currency the fourth in the world to get the digital treatment, DigiCash claims.

Other DigiCash licensees are Mark Twain Bank (US), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Merita Bank (Finland) and Posten (Sweden).

"We would like to see more than one Australian bank take up the system. We have been talking to other (Australian) banks, " says DigiCash Australia's managing director, Andreas Furche, who has also had chats with the Australian Reserve Bank over the implications of Ecash for the Australian economy.

The big task for Advance (and affiliate BankSA) is convincing merchants to sign up for the new electronic cash system which could catalyze an Australian online economy.

This week Advance's Web pages were already featuring electronic sign-up forms for merchants. The bank has yet to finalize transaction charges for the system, but costs should be lower than the credit card transactions currently used for most Net-based retail commerce.

Digicash established its Australian operation in March. The corporation claims the Ecash system provides transactions that are as secure and secret as interbank transactions. A user draws money from an account and stores it in software as "Ecash." When a purchase is agreed, Ecash transfers electronic "coins" from the PC, sealed into an electronic "envelope" which goes to the nominated bank for authentication.

The bank cannot see the details of the transaction. Once authenticated, the payment goes to the payee, who receives a credit.

(19961025)

_______________________ Regards, What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. -Samuel Johnson reagle@mit.edu E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65 BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E