A secure electronic transfer mechanism that does not require that the computing entities that are parties to the transaction be aware of the secret data used to secure the transfer. A transferring computing entity provides a request from a billing agent computing entity to transfer the electronically transferable item to a computing entity. The billing agent computing entity responds to the request by providing approval data to the second computing entity, the approval data being encrypted using secret data known to the billing agent computing entity and a supplemental computing entity associated with the transferee computing entity, but not to the transferring and transferee computing entity. The approval is provided to the supplemental computing entity, which then credits the transferee account.