Theft of credit card numbers over the Internet is the greatest obstacle to e-commerce development. Until these security issues are resolved, consumers remain hesitant about purchasing goods and services. Recent statistics show that just 2 per cent of Irish consumers buy products online, said Orbiscom group chief executive, Mr Graham O'Donnell.

Orbiscom is one of several Irish companies, including Trintech and Baltimore, developing secure Internet credit card payment services or products.

In July, AIB will offer Orbiscom's controlled card technology to its customers under the Transactonline brand name. Orbiscom's application is linked with an individual credit card but allows the cardholder to use a separate, unique, controlled number for each individual transaction on the Internet.

Customers control the amount of the payment, who gets the payment and how long the payment remains valid. This last option means that payment for goods that do not arrive within a specified length of time, say six to eight weeks, is automatically cancelled.

In the future, AIB's Transact online will allow children to conduct transactions online which are pre-authorised by parents, said Mr O'Donnell.

Merchants also benefit from the new system because payments are guaranteed. Baltimore recently licensed its encryption technology to Visa International to make secure Internet payments possible.