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25 July 1996

Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi, Ltd., and NEC Corporation will jointly develop a consumer-oriented common platform for electronic commerce (EC) as part of the Electronic Commerce Promotion Project initiated by the Information-technology Promotion Agency in Japan (IPA). The Secure Electronic Commerce Environment (SECE) will enable secure and reliable EC transactions between companies and consumers over open networks, such as the Internet.

Electronic commerce between enterprises and individual consumers is expected to quickly become widespread in the years ahead. For this to happen, it is necessary to have a payment environment that users know is secure, reliable and free of risk. The first step toward attaining this goal involves providing the requisite infrastructure technologies.

Comprised of Secure Commerce Protocols for conducting secure payments and the client software with the protocols implemented, SECE will provide a common infrastructure for secure electronic transactions between enterprises and consumers. In addition to providing full security for such transactions, it will incorporate local business-related practices and procedures, such as the bonus-related payment system commonly used in Japan. Consumers often want to use a variety of payment options, changing from transaction to transaction. SECE is flexible enough to meet these and other consumer needs and priorities, while providing a secure environment for electronically implementing the full range of normal commercial payment and certification procedures.

A number of Testbed Projects* within the EC Promotion Project are now underway at various locations in Japan. Results of the joint development will quickly be made available to these Testbed Projects, providing valuable evaluation feedback, and will also be provided for review and discussion by the technical working groups of the Electronic Commerce Promotion Council in Japan (ECOM ; http://www.ecom.or.jp).

*Provision of SECE to the following EC Promotion Testbed Projects is planned.

- Electronic Commerce Settlement
- Cyber Card Platform system
- Cyber Commerce City
- Smart Collar Club
- Virtual City
- MEDIAPORT NAGOYA