It offered three main public key infrastructure (PKI) based products: an Identity Warranty system (tracking and insuring reliance on identity assertions in financial transactions); an electronic payment system (internally known as Acquire); and an Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responder for validating X.509 public key certificates.

[1] Some of its better known early employees included Rich Ankney, Ed Appel, Alan Asay, Ernest Brickell, David Kravitz (inventor of the Digital Signature Algorithm), Yair Frankel, Dan Geer, C.T.

[2][3][4] CertCo and Bankers Trust promoted the creation of a bank consortium to serve as a PKI certificate authority for global commerce, leading to the 1999 launch of Identrus, later renamed Identrust.

Secondly, strong authentication of clients employing PKI and digital signatures was promoted, and if it had been widely used this would have reduced the effect of Phishing attacks, also envisioned as a possible threat to financial transactions).

[9] Despite developing new technology, CertCo did not find a wide market for its products, and went out of business in Spring 2002, following substantial reductions in technical staff in November and December 2001, due, partially, to unavailability of investors after the September 11 attacks.