Amex was planning to introduce its proprietary version of one-time credit card number software as Bank Technology News went to press. Moreover, the New York-based payments giant is so confident about this method of making online shopping more secure that it is taking it commercial without first doing a pilot. Private Payments, Amex's system, will allow an Amex customer to shop online without revealing his card number, by replacing his actual card number with a temporary number at the moment he goes to make a purchase. At the checkout section on an Internet merchant's site, a Private Payments window automatically pops up asking for a user name and password. This number is invalid after one purchase.
Installation is relatively painless.
Consumers can obtain the software from the Amex Web site and download it in three minutes or less. However, since customers shopping online can also visit the Amex site where Private Payments is in place, they won't ever need to download the software. The advantage of the software is that a Private Payments icon will reside at the bottom of users' PC screens so they won't have to hop from site to site as they buy from participating merchants. Merchants won't have to change anything. As far as they're concerned, the number they receive is a genuine American Express card number.