AssuredCredit, Payment Gateway Technology SolutionsAssuredCreditThe record
1996–1999Menu

From SuccessInc to Milinx, 1987–1999

The innovations behind the payment gateway

Assured Credit was founded in 1996,⁠[1] but the gateway it built drew on work that had begun almost a decade earlier.⁠[2][3] This page follows that work in time order, in four steps. For each step it sets out what the innovation was, the problem it solved and what it carried into the next step, and it keeps apart what is independently recorded and what is the company’s own account.

  1. Step 1SuccessInc1987–1994
  2. Step 2Assured Card1994
  3. Step 3Assured Credit1996–1999
  4. Step 4Milinx1997–1999

The line at a glance, 1987–2000

Each entry is dated as its source dates it, and each carries a label for the kind of source behind it.

  • Record stated on maynardldokken.com, the record of the founder’s ventures
  • Primary record a patent filing, an SEC filing, a published biography or a dated release of the time
  • Company’s account this site’s original pages, with no other source
  1. 1987

    SuccessInc begins, as a self-funded project to exchange real information over a network.⁠[2]

    Step 1Record

  2. 1987–1988

    The Application Gateway: one machine driving two modems at once, one shared database kept in sync across both, the Minix operating system and a sign-in-once account store.⁠[4]

    Step 1Record

  3. 1988

    First application on the AppNet framework: online employment recruitment, reached over the network with nothing installed locally.⁠[5]

    Step 1Record

  4. 1994

    SuccessInc adds a community layer to AppNet and works on securing users’ data as it moves over the network.⁠[5][10] Dokken develops a package of software services for small businesses.⁠[11][12]

    Step 1RecordPrimary record

  5. 1994

    Assured Card founded in British Columbia;⁠[6] Dokken begins researching a new credit-card product.⁠[13]

    Step 2RecordPrimary record

  6. 1994

    Assured Card’s annual payments processed online in-house, “with internet enabled by 1996”.⁠[14]

    Step 2Company’s account

  7. 1996

    Assured Credit founded as a separate development company, to build the secure terminal and the gateway behind it.⁠[1][15]

    Step 3Record

  8. 1997

    Milinx founded,⁠[11] its name derived from Minix.⁠[16]

    Step 4RecordPrimary record

  9. 1997

    Development of the browser-based and hosted gateways begins.⁠[17]

    Step 3Company’s account

  10. 1998

    First version of the gateway: Windows NT, SQL Server and IIS, with TAPI and ACD routing and Java key management.⁠[18]

    Step 3Company’s account

  11. 1998

    The Assured Credit Web Portal begins as an intranet.⁠[19]

    Step 3Record

  12. 1999

    Browser-Based Management Terminal, version 2.0: a payment terminal run entirely through a web browser on the merchant’s own hardware.⁠[7]

    Step 3Record

  13. 1999

    TLS adopted for transport security once it becomes available;⁠[20] the Web Portal launched as a web portal.⁠[19]

    Step 3Record

  14. 1999

    Assured Credit’s work merges into Milinx through its subsidiary Credit Assure Financial;⁠[8] intellectual property and trademarks are exchanged for Milinx shares.⁠[13]

    Step 4RecordPrimary record

  15. 10 Mar 2000

    Patent application “Client-centered secure e-commerce” filed, assigned to Milinx.⁠[9]

    Step 4Primary record

  16. 2 Oct 2000

    Heartland Payment Systems alliance: Milinx customers can apply online for an Internet merchant account.⁠[21]

    Step 4Primary record

1987–1994

Step 1: SuccessInc and the network gateway

SuccessInc built a gateway through which many users could reach applications run in one place, with one sign-in and one shared set of data. The record names that gateway, its account model, its shared database and its security work as the basis of what Assured Card and Assured Credit built next.⁠[3]

The innovation

SuccessInc began in 1987 as a self-funded project to build a system that could exchange real information over a network.⁠[2] Its core, built in 1987–1988 over close to a year, was what the record calls the Application Gateway: a server, a repository, a shared data store and a dual-network connection, on which applications could be hosted centrally and reached remotely.⁠[4] Dokken customized a newer IBM machine to drive two modems at the same time, a configuration not then sold as a product, so that both connections fed one shared database kept in synchronization; the machine ran Minix, and a text-based user-and-account store let a person sign in once and reach several accounts.⁠[4] Logging in once, with a single ID, to several related but independent systems is what is now called single sign-on.⁠[22]

On the gateway he built AppNet, a framework that ran applications centrally and delivered them over the network on a subscription basis, so that an update made in one place reached every connected user at once.⁠[23] Its first application, in 1988, was online employment recruitment: employers posted positions and candidates applied over the network, through the gateway, without installing software.⁠[5]

The problem it solved

The bulletin-board systems of the period presented themselves as knowledge networks but were, in practice, largely text games, and a mainframe Dokken could reach had no external network connection.⁠[2][4] The gateway gave him a machine that several users could reach at once over the network, all working from the same data.⁠[4] Recruitment was chosen as the first application because it exercised the whole architecture: authentication, account management, persistent structured data, network delivery and concurrent users.⁠[5]

In 1994, alongside a new community layer for AppNet,⁠[5] SuccessInc was working on how to secure its users’ data as it moved over the network, a hard problem before the web had standard security protocols: Netscape’s Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) appeared only in 1994–1995.⁠[10] Dokken’s research into network and data security in this period showed how exposed many publicly accessible systems then were.⁠[10]

What it carried into the next step

The security research fed, in the record’s words, “directly into the consumer-protection aims” of Assured Card.⁠[10] More broadly, the record names four parts that became the basis of Assured Card and its development company Assured Credit from the mid-1990s: the gateway, the account model, the shared database and the security work.⁠[3] It adds that AppNet’s handling of structured transactions in real time anticipated online transaction processing (OLTP),⁠[24] in which large numbers of people carry out large numbers of database transactions in real time, typically over the internet.⁠[25] The hosted-application framework itself became the business of Milinx.⁠[3]

This site’s own pages add, as the company’s account, that the hosted CRM first developed by SuccessInc was integrated into Assured Card’s operations for managing customers,⁠[26] and that for those operations the team went back to the CRM and accounting packages it had started building for the updated SuccessInc jobs application.⁠[27]

Next: Assured Card, 1994

How this step is recorded

Independently recorded
The Wall Street Transcript’s biography of Dokken records that he founded Success, Inc. and, in 1994, developed a package of software services for small businesses,⁠[11][12] and that his later subscription sales of software over the internet “presaged” the application service provider model.⁠[28]
From the company’s own pages
The record draws the details of the gateway and AppNet from SuccessInc’s own pages, and it says that the claim to have built the first platform of its kind is the company’s own.⁠[4][28]

1994

Step 2: Assured Card and the problem of a secure channel

Assured Card was a consumer credit product whose customers’ personal and financial details had to reach the company cheaply and safely, at a time when the open web could not yet carry them securely.⁠[29][15]

The innovation

Assured Card was a Canadian consumer credit company founded by Dokken in 1994.⁠[30] At its centre was a credit line that stepped in before a missed payment could trigger higher interest or credit adjustments, run alongside a structured debt-stability curriculum, the 6-Step Financial Stability Program; membership carried a $29 annual fee that referrals could waive.⁠[31]

By the company’s own account, Assured Card also processed payments itself; in Dokken’s words on the old home page, “The first online payment gateway processed in 1994 AssuredCard annual payments, online in-house with internet enabled by 1996.”⁠[14] The same pages say that its operations ran 1994 versions of miBilling and miCRM, which Assured Credit later converted with Visual Studio 6.0,⁠[32] and that a software framework built from Assured Card’s 1994 payment-processing framework, by 1998 for managed modem connections, was “the key technology needed to build the first Online Payment Gateway”.⁠[18]

The problem it met

Enrollment began on paper: forms were printed, mailed to customers, returned and processed by hand at the office. At a $29 fee, the cost of printing, mailing, returning and handling paper made the model hard to sustain, and a paper form moving through the postal system could be opened by anyone who handled it, exposing the customer’s personal and financial information.⁠[29] Moving customers onto a secure electronic system was the answer, but in 1994, and still in 1996, that could not mean a public website: the open web was not yet a practical or secure channel for financial data.⁠[15]

So the service was delivered as a closed, terminal-based system, which a customer could reach only by installing a specially packaged version of the Netscape browser, distributed by the company, and connecting over SSL.⁠[15] The aim was the stronger transport security that later arrived as TLS, but in 1996 only SSL was available.⁠[15] SSL, which Netscape developed, and its successor TLS let client and server programs, such as a browser and a web server, communicate across a network in a way designed to prevent eavesdropping and tampering; TLS 1.0 was defined in January 1999 as an upgrade of SSL 3.0.⁠[33]

What it carried into the next step

The problem Assured Card could not solve on paper, serving customers cheaply and securely, became the work of a separate company: the secure-enrollment and payment-processing technology (the terminal, the install package and the gateway behind it) was developed as Assured Credit from 1996.⁠[15][34] The same way in, a packaged Netscape browser, reappears in Assured Credit’s merchant terminal.⁠[15][7]

Next: Assured Credit, 1996–1999

How this step is recorded

Independently recorded
British Columbia corporate records, as the record reports them, show the venture beginning in 1994 as Assured Card Coordinating Services Inc.⁠[6] Milinx’s annual report for the year to 30 June 2000 records that Dokken began researching a new credit-card product in 1994 and, in 1997, turned to offering a further consumer card.⁠[13]
From the company’s own account
The customer count, about 10,000 between 1994 and 1999, is the company’s own account, as the record notes.⁠[6] The 1994 in-house payment processing and the 1994 versions of miBilling and miCRM are described only on this site’s pages.⁠[14][32]

1996–1999

Step 3: Assured Credit, the browser terminal and the hosted gateway

Assured Credit took the problem Assured Card could not solve on paper and answered it with two systems: a payment terminal run through a web browser on the merchant’s own hardware, and a hosted gateway built so that the merchant never receives the customer’s banking details.⁠[34][35]

The innovation

Assured Credit was established in 1996 as a separate development company, so that Assured Card’s engineering could stand apart from its consumer business.⁠[1] Its brief was a payment gateway and a terminal through which a payment and a credit application could be taken together over a secure connection.⁠[1] A payment gateway is a merchant service that authorizes card or direct payments for online and other merchants; the transaction is then passed on toward the card network and the bank that issued the card.⁠[36] The sources describe these parts of what it built:

  1. The first gateway, 1998, by the company’s account. This site’s Origins page dates the first version of the gateway to 1998: Windows NT with SQL Server and IIS; TAPI 2.0 with an automatic call distributor (ACD) framework, routing each authorization by card or financial institution through the right terminal profile and connection; XML routing files and profiles; and Java KeyStore and JSSE for keys and secure connections.⁠[18][37] The record describes the same stack without dating a version: C++, Netscape’s HTML, Java and JavaScript tooling, NT Server, Microsoft SQL Server, IIS and ASP, Active Directory (LDAP), CryptoAPI, and Java key management (JSSE and KeyStore) with XML routing.⁠[20]
  2. The on-premise terminal, version 2.0, 1999. The Browser-Based Management Terminal was a full payment terminal operated entirely through a web browser, pre-installed and configured on the merchant’s own hardware, which Dokken describes as the first real web-based payment terminal.⁠[7] A merchant reached it by installing a packaged Netscape browser, and its dashboard ran in the browser with “no IIS plugin required”.⁠[7] It accepted credit, debit and cheque payments over dial-up modem, leased line, Internet or ISDN; kept a customer database with recurring and installment billing; processed in real time or in batches; and checked address, phone, e-mail, BIN and card-verification codes.⁠[7]
  3. The hosted gateway and the client-centered model. Alongside the terminal, Assured Credit built a hosted online payment gateway.⁠[35] Its defining idea was client-centered: the payor authorizes a payment through their own financial institution, so the merchant never receives the consumer’s banking details.⁠[35] The patent application that later set the model out names the problem it answers: card payments transferred confidential financial information to a variety of merchants, which “presents a risk of theft and fraudulent use of the information”.⁠[9] In the model, an on-line intermediary holds the consumer’s confidential financial and identification information and completes the transaction without disclosing it to the merchant.⁠[9]
  4. Transport security. Both systems used SSL, the web-security protocol of the period, and adopted the stronger TLS once it became available in 1999.⁠[20]

The problem it solved

For Assured Card, the two systems replaced paper with a secure electronic channel, the purpose Assured Credit was founded for.⁠[1] For merchants, the terminal put payment acceptance, a customer database and fraud checks on their own premises, run through a web browser.⁠[7] For consumers, the client-centered model kept their banking details from the merchants they bought from, answering the risk of theft and fraud that the patent application describes.⁠[35][9]

What it carried into the next step

Assured Credit’s mandate was to take both the terminal and the hosted gateway into the application service provider and software-as-a-service model,⁠[8] in which a provider offers access to applications and related services over the internet.⁠[38] Its Web Portal, an intranet from 1998 and a web portal from 1999, was the proving ground for the merchant payment gateway of 2000.⁠[19] The systems and the portal both went on into Milinx.⁠[8][19]

Next: Milinx, 1997–1999

How this step is recorded

Independently recorded
The dated public record of the client-centered model is the patent application filed on 10 March 2000 and assigned to Milinx; the record calls it the verifiable, dated anchor for Assured Credit’s contribution.⁠[9][39]
Dokken’s and the company’s account
That the terminal was the first real web-based payment terminal is Dokken’s own description. The record reads it as the browser-operated, on-premise terminal of 1999, and places Assured Credit in the first wave of online payment technology, alongside Authorize.Net and CyberCash, founded in 1994–1996, and Confinity, founded in 1998.⁠[7][39] The 1998 first version and its details come from this site’s Origins page alone.⁠[18]

1997–1999

Step 4: Milinx and the gateway as a hosted service

Milinx, named after Minix, the operating system of the SuccessInc gateway, took in Assured Credit’s work in 1999 and carried the hosted gateway into a hosted-software business.⁠[16][4][8]

The innovation

Dokken founded Milinx in 1997,⁠[11] with a name derived from Minix,⁠[16] carrying forward the payment and hosting technology developed at Assured Card and Assured Credit.⁠[40] This site’s Forms page gives the same origin in the company’s words: Milinx was “named from the Minix backend of SuccessInc”.⁠[41] In 1999 Assured Credit’s work merged into the publicly traded Milinx Business Group through its subsidiary Credit Assure Financial, and Milinx carried the hosted gateway forward inside its miCommerce suite: miPay, miBilling, miCRM and miStore.⁠[8]

On 10 March 2000 Milinx filed the patent application “Client-centered secure e-commerce” (CA 2,300,347), with an international counterpart, WO 2001/067408.⁠[9][42] The record notes that the published application was later abandoned (2003).⁠[35] By the company’s account, the patent was filed to protect the work and to explain the technology securely to potential financial institutions.⁠[43] On 2 October 2000 Heartland Payment Systems announced an alliance under which Milinx customers could apply online for an Internet merchant account through the subsidiary CreditAssure Financial.⁠[21]

The problem it solved

The version 2.0 terminal was pre-installed and configured on each merchant’s own hardware.⁠[7] Delivering payment acceptance as a hosted gateway, rather than as software each merchant runs, is the step the record sees as prefiguring payment-as-a-service,⁠[44] and it matched what Milinx set out to be: a provider of hosted software to small and mid-sized businesses on subscription.⁠[40] The Heartland alliance let those customers apply online for their Internet merchant account.⁠[21]

What it carried forward

With Milinx the line returns to where it began. The hosted-application framework first built at SuccessInc became the business of Milinx,⁠[3] and the record describes the thread as running unbroken from “SuccessInc's 1988 gateway” through the Assured Card and Assured Credit payment work to the Milinx platform.⁠[45] It traces Milinx’s miPORTAL of March 2001 back to the Assured Credit Web Portal, re-engineered into miPORTAL’s payment-gateway management through miBilling.⁠[19]

How this step is recorded

Independently recorded
Milinx’s annual report for the year to 30 June 2000 records the 1999 exchange of intellectual property and trademarks for Milinx shares,⁠[13] and the record reads Milinx’s filings as listing Credit Assure Financial (Canada) Inc. as a consolidated subsidiary.⁠[6] The patent application is published with its filing date in the patent record.⁠[9][42]
Dated company release
The Heartland alliance is dated by Milinx’s own release of 2 October 2000.⁠[21]
From the company’s own pages
This site’s pages date the re-launch of the hosted gateway by Milinx to 2000, and the launch of what they call the first scalable and operational hosted gateway to 2000–2001.⁠[46][47]

What SuccessInc gave the gateway, part by part

The record names the parts that passed from SuccessInc to Assured Card and Assured Credit from the mid-1990s: the gateway, the account model, the shared database and the security work; the hosted-application framework went on to Milinx.⁠[3] The table sets each part beside its recorded counterpart in Assured Credit’s systems. The record states the link in general terms and does not say how each part was carried over, so the pairing is a reading of recorded features side by side, not a further claim.

SuccessInc’s parts and their counterparts
PartAt SuccessInc, 1987–1994At Assured Credit, 1996–1999
GatewayThe Application Gateway: a server, a repository, a shared data store and a dual-network connection, reached remotely⁠[4]A payment gateway and terminal taking a payment and a credit application over a secure connection;⁠[1] connections by dial-up modem, leased line, Internet or ISDN⁠[7]
Account modelA text-based user-and-account store: sign in once, reach several accounts⁠[4]Active Directory (LDAP) in the server stack;⁠[20] in the client-centered model, the consumer’s financial and identification information registered with an intermediary that deals with merchants and financial institutions on the consumer’s behalf⁠[9]
Shared databaseOne database kept in sync across both connections, serving concurrent users⁠[4][24]A customer database with recurring and installment billing,⁠[7] on Microsoft SQL Server⁠[20]
TransactionsStructured transactions committed and exchanged in real time, anticipating OLTP⁠[24]Real-time or batch processing, with split-dial authorization for the major card networks⁠[7]
SecurityResearch into securing users’ data in transit (1994), before the web’s security protocols existed⁠[10]SSL, then TLS once available in 1999; CryptoAPI and Java key management⁠[20]
Hosted deliveryAppNet: applications run centrally and delivered over the network on subscription⁠[23]The hosted online payment gateway,⁠[35] and the mandate to take terminal and gateway into the ASP and software-as-a-service model⁠[8]
NameMinix, the operating system of the gateway⁠[4]Milinx, the company named after it, which took in the work in 1999⁠[16][8]

Versions and dates, as each source gives them

The record and this site’s original pages do not always give the same year for the same thing. Neither is changed here; the table shows both.

Dates in the record and on this site’s original pages
ItemThe record (maynardldokken.com)This site’s original pages
SuccessInc gatewayBuilt 1987–1988; first application 1988⁠[4][5]Not dated; the pages name SuccessInc’s CRM and its jobs application⁠[26][27]
Assured CardFounded 1994⁠[6]Payments “processed in 1994 AssuredCard annual payments, online in-house with internet enabled by 1996”⁠[14]
Assured CreditFounded 1996⁠[1]Created by Assured Card “After introducing a unique credit card product in 1994”;⁠[47] the portal “the beginning of creating the online forms and first online payment gateway in 1996”⁠[48]
Web portalAn intranet from 1998, a web portal from 1999⁠[19]“deployed in 1997 as an In-House Data Intranet Portal and re-launched in 1998”⁠[49]
First gateway versionNot dated as a version; the stack is described⁠[20]1998, on the Origins page⁠[18]
On-premise terminalBrowser-Based Management Terminal, version 2.0, 1999⁠[7]Version 2.0 (1999);⁠[50] first introduced “in 1998”;⁠[46] development “commenced in 1997”, operable in 1999⁠[17]
Hosted gatewayBuilt alongside the terminal, without a separate date⁠[35]“released Dec 1998 and launched early 1999”;⁠[49] the hosted prototype “added in 1998-1999”;⁠[47] “re-launched by Milinx in 2000”⁠[46]
Into MilinxMerged in 1999 through Credit Assure Financial⁠[8]“acquired by Milinx in 1999 through CreditAssure”⁠[47]
PatentFiled 10 March 2000, assigned to Milinx; abandoned 2003⁠[35]“Filed March 2000”⁠[51]

“Since 1988” and “Since 1994”: what the dates mean

Two lines on this site carry dates earlier than Assured Credit itself. The old home page’s title read “AssuredCredit | Payment Gateway Technology Innovation Leadership Since 1988”, and the logo in the footer carries the title “AssuredCredit - Payment Solutions Technology Since 1994”. Both keep their original words: the first is shown in the home page’s About this page box, the second as the logo’s title, each now with a short note that links here. Read against the record:

1996

Assured Credit was founded in 1996, as the development arm of Assured Card.⁠[1] The record gives no earlier founding date for it.

1988

In the record, 1988 is a SuccessInc date. It dates the building of SuccessInc’s network gateway to 1987–1988 and its first application, online employment recruitment, to 1988,⁠[4][5] and it describes the line that leads to Milinx as running from “SuccessInc's 1988 gateway” through the Assured Card and Assured Credit payment work.⁠[45]

1994

In the record, 1994 is the founding year of Assured Card, the parent company,⁠[6] and the year Dokken began researching a new credit-card product.⁠[13] In the same year SuccessInc added its community layer and its security research.⁠[5][10] By the company’s own account, 1994 is also when Assured Card’s first in-house payment processing ran.⁠[14]

What the record does not say

The record does not say what either line was meant to count from. Read beside it, “Since 1988” matches the SuccessInc gateway work that the record places at the start of the line, and “Since 1994” matches the founding of Assured Card; neither is the founding year of Assured Credit.

Questions about the gateway’s origins

Was Assured Credit founded in 1988?

No. The record dates Assured Credit’s founding to 1996, as the development arm of Assured Card, which was founded in 1994.⁠[1][6] The earliest work in the line, SuccessInc’s network gateway, dates from 1987–1988.⁠[4]

What did SuccessInc contribute to the payment gateway?

In the record’s words, its gateway, account model, shared database and security work became the basis of Assured Card and Assured Credit from the mid-1990s, and its hosted-application framework became the business of Milinx.⁠[3] The table above sets each part beside its counterpart in Assured Credit’s systems.

What is the dated public record of the gateway model?

The patent application “Client-centered secure e-commerce”, CA 2,300,347, filed on 10 March 2000 and assigned to Milinx.⁠[9] The record calls it the verifiable, dated anchor for Assured Credit’s contribution.⁠[39]

About this page

This page is new: it was added on 3 November 2026 and has no counterpart on the old site, so the only original words on it are the ones it quotes, in quotation marks. It was written from the record on maynardldokken.com, the primary records that the record cites, and this site’s own original pages, which are the company’s own account. Where those sources lack a detail, this page does not supply one.

References

Numbered in the order they are first cited on this page. Each entry links back to the places that cite it.

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Assured Credit: “Origins (1996)”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  2. ↑ a b c d SuccessInc: “Origins (1987)”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g SuccessInc: “Legacy”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o SuccessInc: “The gateway: how it was built (1987–1988)”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i SuccessInc: “Applications” (online employment recruitment, 1988; community, 1994). Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Assured Card: “Industry context and the corporate record”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Assured Credit: “The on-premise terminal”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Assured Credit: “Into Milinx”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j CA 2300347 A1, “Client-centered secure e-commerce”. Google Patents, filed 10 March 2000; assignee Milinx Business Group, Inc.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f SuccessInc: “Security research (1994)”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  11. ↑ a b c d Maynard L. Dokken (biography). The Wall Street Transcript.
  12. ↑ a b Maynard L. Dokken: “SuccessInc (1987)”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  13. ↑ a b c d e Milinx Business Group, Inc., annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2000. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, filed 13 October 2000.
  14. ↑ a b c d e AssuredCredit home page: “The Original Online Merchant Payment Gateway”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g Assured Card: “The move to a secure terminal”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  16. ↑ a b c d Maynard L. Dokken: “Milinx Business Group (1997–2002)”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  17. ↑ a b AssuredCredit, Timeline page: introduction. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  18. ↑ a b c d e AssuredCredit: “The Origins of the Online Payment Gateway 1998”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  19. ↑ a b c d e f Milinx Business Group: “MMAP and the ‘mi’ suite”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  20. ↑ a b c d e f g Assured Credit: “Technology and architecture”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  21. ↑ a b c d Heartland Payment Systems in Alliance with Milinx Subsidiary CreditAssure Online Payment Gateway Services. Milinx news release, milinx.co, 2 October 2000.
  22. ↑ Single sign-on. Wikipedia.
  23. ↑ a b SuccessInc: “The AppNet platform”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  24. ↑ a b c SuccessInc: “How these technologies were used in the development of the internet and applications”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  25. ↑ What Is Online Transactional Processing (OLTP)?. IBM.
  26. ↑ a b AssuredCredit home page: “Message from AssuredCard”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  27. ↑ a b AssuredCredit, Origins page: “AssuredCard Dashboard & Operations Applications”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  28. ↑ a b SuccessInc: “Industry context and significance”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  29. ↑ a b Assured Card: “The paper problem — cost and security”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  30. ↑ Assured Card. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  31. ↑ Assured Card: “The product and program”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  32. ↑ a b AssuredCredit home page: “Payment Gateway Management Apps”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  33. ↑ Transport Layer Security (SSL and TLS). Wikipedia.
  34. ↑ a b Assured Credit: “Legacy”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  35. ↑ a b c d e f g h Assured Credit: “The hosted gateway and the patent”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  36. ↑ Payment gateway. Wikipedia.
  37. ↑ Automatic call distributor. Wikipedia.
  38. ↑ application service provider (ASP). TechTarget.
  39. ↑ a b c Assured Credit: “Industry context”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  40. ↑ a b Milinx Business Group: “Origins and public listing (1997–2000)”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  41. ↑ AssuredCredit, Forms page: toward a universal gateway. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  42. ↑ a b WO 2001/067408 A1, “Client-centered secure e-commerce”. Google Patents, PCT application, priority 10 March 2000.
  43. ↑ AssuredCredit home page: securing the payment gateway. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  44. ↑ Assured Credit: “How this related to the development of online payments”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  45. ↑ a b Milinx Business Group: “Legacy”. Maynard L. Dokken, maynardldokken.com, updated 2 November 2026.
  46. ↑ a b c AssuredCredit, Forms page: “Origins of First On-Premise Online Payment Terminal (Gateway) & First Hosted Online Payment Gateway”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  47. ↑ a b c d AssuredCredit, Timeline page: “AssuredCard was the beginning”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  48. ↑ AssuredCredit home page: the notes on the site’s parts (“Gateway”, “Portal”). assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  49. ↑ a b AssuredCredit, Gateway page: “History of the First Online Merchant Payment Gateway to Universal Hosted 1997-2000”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  50. ↑ AssuredCredit: “Online Browser Based Management Terminal - Version 2.0 (1999)”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).
  51. ↑ AssuredCredit home page: “Secure Universal Online Payment Gateway Commerce Centric - Filed March 2000”. assuredcredit.co, original page kept on this site (the company's own account).

Further reading

Background on terms, companies and records the page mentions. These sources are not cited for any statement.