PASS Consortium

PASS Consortium to Payment-Enable Microsoft Windows Vista

A new payments consortium called PASS (Payments As a Secure Service) announced its formation at the Microsoft Developers Conference. The consortium, which is led by IP Commerce, intends to exploit new features in Windows Vista, including the operating system's enhanced security and discovery features.

Currently, small businesses interface with credit card companies and financial services firms in the financial ecosystem through highly proprietary relationships based on one-to-one technology connections. PASS redefines this relationship by enabling Independent Software Vendors, System Integrators and Value-Added Resellers to create service-oriented financial management solutions in software applications fulfilled by best-in-class providers through a single service provisioning system.

Participants in PASS include BankServ, Chase Paymentech, PayPal, and Pay by Touch among others.

The PASS Consortium is enabled by leveraging IP Commerce's IP Payments Framework(TM) (IPPF) within Windows Vista. IPPF provides an SOA-based framework for the financial industry that can be utilized to host payments networks, as well as toolkits to connect services, devices and applications to multiple financial management services. IPPF breaks down traditional barriers by connecting banks, financial service providers, businesses, software vendors and resellers, and offers the opportunity to engage the market with innovative software offerings targeting each of these groups.

The PASS Consortium makes optimal use of new features in Windows Vista, including the operating system's enhanced security features and the ability to discover PASS Consortium offerings using its new integrated search capabilities. The services are expected to be fully implemented by the Windows Vista launch in early 2007.