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Orbiscom looks to expand beyond the Web 
Friday, May 11 2001
by Mary O'Neill


Irish company Orbiscom is to focus its attentions on marketing a solution for
real world credit card fraud, in addition to its on-line solution. 



The company, which creates controlled payment technology for on-line and real
world payment applications, has said that incidences of fraud could be prevented
with Orbiscom's technology, which controls the amount of money consumers can
spend on their credit cards. It also generates a random number for every
transaction on the card and controls expiry dates. 

"Over the past year, we noted an increasing interest from banks and consumers
for controlling real world credit card fraud, in addition to the on-line shopping
protection that our products bring," Graham O'Donnell, chief executive officer
of Orbiscom said.



The company was speaking in the wake of news on Thursday that a major credit card
fraud ring was in operation in Dublin. Prior to this, the main focus of concern
in relation to credit card fraud, according to Orbiscom, was in the on-line
field. However a spokesperson for the company said that before the end of the
year, Orbiscom will be marketing a real-world solution that will be as widely
used as the on-line one.

On Thursday, Gardai issued a warning to the public to be cautious about the use
of credit cards. The warning was issued after Gardai found miniature "swipe
card" equipment which can be used to copy information from credit cards. Along
with the equipment, Gardai found around 380 stolen or manufactured credit cards. 


With the machinery the information from the magnetic strip on the card can be
transferred to a computer, replicated and transferred to a fake card.  

Currently Orbiscom's core product, O-card, a controlled payment number technology
(CPN), is used to fight fraud on-line, but company believes it has the means
operate outside of cyberspace as well.

O-card allows customers to set a limit on how much any given merchant can charge
to the card. In addition the product lets customers determine whether to allow
multiple charges, which prevents erroneous billing from the same party multiple
times. 

Another aspect of the product is its ability to generate a one-time number and
expiration date to be used for the transaction. The numbers are used only once
thereby preventing would-be thieves from capturing credit card numbers and
expiration dates and using them repeatedly. When the merchant receives the
credit-card number, it is indistinguishable from any other number as far as the
merchant is concerned.

The company makes money by charging for building the software and by charging a
fee for each transaction involving use of the software. 

"Customers could avail of the service by setting up controls with their banks
either by PDA or WAP phones," a spokesperson for Orbiscom told ElectricNews.Net.
"With this service, real world credit card fraud could be detected
automatically."

Orbiscom was set up in 1998, with a view to initiating its applications on the
Internet, before marketing its products to the real world. Its customers include
AIB, which provides the Orbiscom's service under the brand name 'transactonline',
and US credit card companies MBNA and Discover.

The company is headquartered in Dublin, and also has offices in New York, London,
Brussels, Toronto and Sydney.