CHEQUE PAYMENTS VIA THE INTERNET
By Adnews Staff
A group of U.S. technology companies and several large banks, including the Bank of Montreal, are developing an electronic cheque-payment system to be used for shopping on the Internet. They plan to test it next year. Under the system, a shopper would insert a special card into his or her computer to send an electronic cheque to a merchant who would forward it to the bank for clearance. The system would be able to handle certified cheques and those in foreign currencies. The computer card would verify the identity of the cheque writer to prevent forgeries. There are seven banks in the consortium developing the system, including Citibank, the Bank of America and Chemical Bank, as well as seven technology companies, including IBM and National Semiconductor Corp., and four research organizations.