PaySafe was the first Secure Electronic Payment System for Credit Cards over the Internet.
PaySafe was conceived in Australia in 1991 by Dennis Charter and developed by a group of computer programmers headed by Justin Fanning and included others such as the renowned international security consultant and PGP encryption inventor Phil Zimmerman. In 1996 PaySafe was launched in the United States. Its creators had such belief in its security that a US$10 Million 'prize' was offered to anyone who could hack the PaySafe security portal. No one made claim to the prize.
Dennis Charter’s Secure Electronic Payment invention for the internet is the foundation of all internet based electronic transactions today. This single invention is one of the most commercially significant inventions of the 1990’s. Not a single transaction over the internet today is performed without a Secure Electronic configuration of some description.