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Link to original content: https://www.computerworld.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1354577
{"id":1354577,"date":"2002-03-25T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-03-25T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/article\/1354577\/identrus-buys-digital-signature-trust.html"},"modified":"2002-03-25T03:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-03-25T08:00:00","slug":"identrus-buys-digital-signature-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/article\/1354577\/identrus-buys-digital-signature-trust.html","title":{"rendered":"Identrus buys Digital Signature Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Identrus LLC today announced<\/a> 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.\n<\/p>

\n“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.\n<\/p>

\nNew 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.\n<\/p>

\n“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.\n<\/p>

\nLast year, Identrus assumed ownership of Project Eleanor (see story)<\/a>, 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.\n<\/p>

\nSalt 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.\n<\/p>

\nGreg Worch, chief marketing officer at Identrus, said the two companies are complementary from a geographical standpoint, a market segment standpoint and a capabilities standpoint.\n<\/p>

\nIdentrus 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.\n<\/p>

\n“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.”\n<\/p>

\nRelated stories:<\/b>\n<\/p>