First Ecom.com Announces FEDS Global Payment Processing

Tax-news.com

19 February 2000

Bermuda based Internet payment processor First Ecom.com and the Bank of Bermuda have announced the formation of First Ecommerce Data Services Limited (FEDS), a new joint venture company that will provide a comprehensive suite of global credit card payment processing services to banks and their merchants-both online and brick and mortar.
Subject to the finalization of relevant regulatory approvals, First Ecom.com and Bank of Bermuda have created FEDS to provide banks and their merchants the FEDS Processing Solution, which includes online and batch transaction processing for Visa, MasterCard, credit and debit cards. The FEDS Processing Solution includes authorization, electronic data transmission for settlement, and full transaction reporting.

FEDS will grant banks the authority to give their merchants access to the FEDS Processing Solution, which provides a wide range of new services for researching, retrieving and archiving the data associated with the transactions processed on behalf of the banks and their merchants.

The Bank of Bermuda will provide the card processing systems, staff, data processing center and other supporting features, including formal authorization and licenses with regard to the processing of credit card transactions by holders of VISA and MasterCard credit cards.

"This is by far our most significant venture to-date. Creating this new joint venture demonstrates that both companies recognize the importance of working together to create a comprehensive, third-party processing solution for banks and their merchants all over the world," said Gregory Pek, First Ecom.com President and CEO. "FEDS represents a unique payment processing outsourcing opportunity for banks, in that they can work freely with a non-bank, non-competing institution such as FEDS that offers multi-currency payment processing services and can get banks up and running in a matter of days."

Pek added that FEDS overcomes many of the common hurdles facing banks in providing payment processing services to their merchants, including the extreme shortage of qualified technical personnel to build the systems, attracting industry-savvy business partners, increased operating costs for multinational corporations, and high costs associated with system development, maintenance and ongoing R&D. FEDS also addresses the risks associated with banks losing merchant business to competitor banks that have effective payment processing systems because FEDS provides a turnkey solution that can be quickly implemented with any banks existing systems.

"We've been working closely with First Ecom.com since earlier last year, and are very excited about what our new FEDS joint venture will mean, not only for our two companies, but for the vast number of banks and their merchants that understand the clear advantage of outsourcing payment processing. Payment processing has always been the cornerstone of e-commerce and other types of credit card transactions, and we believe that FEDS will be regarded among the best solutions," said Alan Richardson of the Bank of Bermuda Ltd.

Earlier this month First Ecom.com was also recognised as a leader in Internet payment processing services in Asia when it was nominated for the "Best E-Commerce Company" category in the Internet World Asia Industry Awards. The Internet World Asia Academy selected 57 finalists from more than 500 nominations submitted by public and corporate Internet users. The Internet World Asia Industry Awards will be announced in Singapore on March 2, 2000.

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