Zions Bancorp to offer Digital Certificates

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

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Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:47:01 -0800 (PST)
From: William Knowles <erehwon@dis.org>
To: DCSB <dcsb@ai.mit.edu>
cc: DC-Stuff <dc-stuff@dis.org>
Subject: Zions Bancorp to offer Digital Certificates
Organization: Home for retired social engineers & unrepented cryptophreaks
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Reply-To: William Knowles <erehwon@dis.org>

[Techweb 1.12.98] Zions Bancorp, a $9 billion regional bank
in Salt Lake City, this week will become the first financial
institution to offer a service that lets organizations use
digital certificates to secure internal and business-to-business
communications.

Digital certificates, which electronically confirm a user's
identity, are generated and managed by certificate authorities.
Companies can set up authorities themselves or use authorities
created by third parties.

Although certificate-authority services are available from
technology vendors [such as GTE, IBM, and VeriSign, Zions
said customers will feel more comfortable letting a bank manage
their digital certificates. "Banks in the paper world already do
this. They write letters of credit," said Michelle Jolicoeur,
director of government implementations at Digital Signature Trust,
the Zions unit that will offer the service. "Our business is trust."

Digital Signature Trust has conducted pilots of its service with
Utah's Department of Commerce, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints, and internal departments for about a year.  The service
uses digital certificate software from several vendors, including
Certco, Entrust, GTE, VeriSign, and Xcert. Separately, Certco and
Entrust will unveil new features to their certificate-authority
offerings at the RSA Data Security conference in San Francisco
this week.

Oppenheimer Funds, which plans to implement digital certificates
by midyear to bolster IT security, is investigating whether to
operate its own certificate authority or to outsource. "A bank
is generally going to be a more stable company," said Jim Patterson,
an Oppenheimer technology vice president in Englewood, Colo.
"But on the other hand, do I want a bank that I currently don't
have a relationship with to know so much about me?"

Still, Patterson said digital certificates will be important
in business-to-business commerce and communications. "With
digital certificates, I can start getting or sending requests
to perform business functions over any medium I want, including
the public Internet," he said.

Pricing for the Digital Signature Trust service will be
subscription-based and will depend on the customer's
applications and number of certificates.


==
The information standard is more draconian than the gold
standard, because the government has lost control of the
marketplace.  --  Walter Wriston
==
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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
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The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
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