TECHNOLOGY - Feb. 1, 1996

Visa, MasterCard Team Up on Internet: A group of companies led by Visa International and MasterCard International are working to devise a technical standard that will make credit card purchases over the Internet safe from cyber-thieves. The New York Times reported that the business group said the new technology is called Secure Electronic Transactions. It is to be unveiled today, and the services should be available by year-end. The system allows a user to send a credit card account number to a merchant in a scrambled form, which is supposedly unintelligible to electronic thieves, according to the newspaper. A special code will allow the merchant to check electronically and automatically with the bank that issued the credit card to make sure the card number is valid and that the customer is the authorized user.