Thomas Junker writes:

Fagen also cited the changing climate in the U.S. for Internet payments. When the trial was started in 1995, she said, "people were more fearful of using credit cards to pay for things over the Internet. Now that seems to have disappeared."

Had Ms. D'Amico understood the nature of Digicash, she may have questioned Ms. Fagen about the apparent non sequitur. If Digicash had nothing to do with making credit transactions "safer," why would decreasing public fear of using credit cards on the Internet have anything to do with Mercantile's decision to abruptly discontinue the Digicash program?

This seems clear enough. Digicash was competing with credit cards as a payment system. One of its advantages was that you didn't have to send your credit card number across the net. As fear of transferring credit card numbers declined, Digicash lost this advantage.