StoreFront E-Commerce Integrates Payer Authentication Services, Offers Merchants Valuable Tool to Combat Fraud

StoreFront partners with CardinalCommerce to enable Verified by Visa (VbV) and MasterCard® SecureCode™ payment authentication services

April 19, 2005 -- LaGarde, makers of the industry leading StoreFront® e-commerce platform, announced today the integration of CardinalCommerce’s payer authentication services, Cardinal Centinel™, into the StoreFront 6 product, enabling greater credit card fraud prevention. The integration of Cardinal Centinel will allow StoreFront online merchants to minimize credit card fraud exposure and costs, increase website shopper confidence, and in some cases, reduce credit card interchange fees.

With internet credit card fraud on the rise, and 70% of consumers expressing reluctance or unwillingness to complete online purchases due to concern with credit card security issues, credit card issuers, merchant banks, and online merchants alike are stepping up their efforts to ensure credit card security. This new era has spurred both Visa and MasterCard to develop 3-D Secure programs (Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode), to meet the specific needs of an online (card not present) environment. These programs encourage web merchants to authenticate cardholder identity/authority, and provide very attractive incentives; such as guaranteed payment on transactions (protection against chargebacks on certain transaction types that have been authenticated). Cardinal Centinel offers a cost-effective means for e-commerce businesses to participate in Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode programs.

“We see this as a tremendously exciting opportunity to better arm e-businesses to combat credit card fraud, and simultaneously to help inspire greater consumer confidence in online purchasing, as consumers begin to recognize the greater credit card security offered by sites displaying the Verified by Visa and SecureCode logos,” said Bob LaGarde, LaGarde CEO and founder.

“We are very pleased to have joined forces with LaGarde to offer the market Cardinal’s advanced payer authentication services combined with StoreFront’s world-class e-business solutions,” said Kendall G. Myles, Senior Vice -President of Merchant Services at CardinalCommerce. “This partnership will enable Cardinal to deliver tangible and measurable results, in terms of minimized fraud risk and chargebacks, to StoreFront’s worldwide reach to tens of thousands of e-merchants.”