Identrus buys Digital Signature Trust

Identrus LLC today announced that it has signed a deal to acquire Digital Signature Trust Co. (DST) from Salt Lake City-based Zions Bancorporation and the Washington-based American Bankers Association for an undisclosed amount. The deal gives Identrus the service arm it has sorely needed as it struggles to be the user authentication service for business-to-business e-commerce.

“There is a need for a B2B payment network. The banks were missing the boat, and now they’ll be able to jump on and have a solid base to operate from,” said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.

New York-based Identrus, a vendor formed by a consortium of banks, has been building a global public-key infrastructure (PKI)-based system that was trying to be the de facto “digital handshake” for cross-border business-to-business transactions. Although Identrus had the framework, guidelines and preferred vendors, it didn’t have its own service.

“Many banks ran into problems with vendors, and it took months to get [the PKI service] implemented. And then the customer didn’t want to use it,” Litan said.

Last year, Identrus assumed ownership of Project Eleanor (see story), a joint venture of several financial institutions aimed at creating a standard for secure business-to-business payments over the Internet and bolstering straight-through processing or single-day settlement of trades.

Salt Lake City-based DST provides online digital identification services to federal and state government agencies, including the Social Security Administration, and to U.S.-based financial services and utilities markets through its TrustID program.

Greg Worch, chief marketing officer at Identrus, said the two companies are complementary from a geographical standpoint, a market segment standpoint and a capabilities standpoint.

Identrus has been dominant on a global basis, but although it has some “major players” in the U.S., the PKI market was fragmented compared with the rest of the world, he said.

“TrustID is more targeted to needs of the middle market and B2B space,” Worch said. “DST also operates not just with banks but has more strength with the nonbank industry — the mortgage industry, government sector and supply chain area.”

Related stories:

• IBM gives Identrus a lift, Aug. 27, 2001
• Microsoft aims for integration with Identrus’ network, May 1, 2001
• VeriSign certificate snafu highlights threat of human errors, March 30, 2001