* Identrus wants to play role in online financial transactions
Karen Wendel really did fall into a piranha-infested river. But since she was raised in the outback of Venezuela, that’s not surprising. Still, I trust that she was telling me the truth about the story because her company, Identrus, is all about trust.
Identrus was formed by a consortium of banks and charged with developing a system for electronic payments among the members of the group. The driving force was the need to move from the cumbersome and expensive private networks that banks used to connect to other banks. The public Internet was faster and cheaper, but also a whole lot less safe.
Karen Wendel entered the picture when Identrus acquired eFinance five years ago. That company was (and still is, as it retains its own identity) involved in bringing the “supply chain” methodology to the financial industry, and Wendel was its CEO. Identrus acquired eFinance for its technology, certainly (they already shared most of their clients), but also for the leadership of Wendel, who assumed the role of Identrus’ CEO.
Providing secure, rapid, electronic payment services to financial institutions can be exciting at first. But I’d imagine that it would soon become plodding and routine to all but the most dedicated of accounting dweebs and security nerds. But the interesting thing is that the lessons learned in providing secure, rapid, electronic payment services to financial institutions can be extrapolated to providing services for all sorts of people and organizations which exchange financial information – such as buyers and sellers.
We’ve come a long way from the late ‘90s, when most people – even most people comfortable with the Internet – were wary of buying things online if that meant exposing their personal information and/or credit card details. The success of Amazon, Orbitz, eBay and others testifies that people have become comfortable with buying over the Internet – especially for small sums (a $20 book) or relatively small sums (a $300 plane ticket) where the credit card company mitigates any potential loss ($50 or less is your personal liability). But suppose you need to make purchases in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even in the million-dollar range? On the other hand, buying a $10 item from a (to you) unknown seller on eBay is acceptable, because the potential gain outweighs the potential loss.
But suppose you’re a manufacturer who needs a new source of a particular raw material? You need a million dollars’ worth of rolled steel, and there’s a company in Asia that has a million in rolled steel ready to ship. But you don’t know them, and they don’t know you.
Time was, this transaction would take months to complete. Even today, using traditional means of locating a buyer/seller, exchanging banking details, drawing up delivery contracts and so on can still take many days, even weeks. Identrus wants to help. It wants to provide the Identity guarantee so that the parties to the deal can Trust that the deal will take place as negotiated. Identity + Trust = Identrus.
From digital signature guarantees to full-blown supply-chain dynamics, Identrus wants to be a partner to any financial transaction. Check the case studies at https://www.identrus.com/knowledge_center/case_studies/ to see what the company can do, and what they might do for you. After all, the world of online commerce is often said to be a piranha-infested pool. Why not go with someone who has the needed experience?
