Earthport deal does little for investors

(ShareCast News) - Earthport announced a new agreement for services with foreign exchange payroll specialist The FX Firm on Thursday, though that appeared to do little for investor appetites.The AIM 50 payment network for cross-border transactions said the agreement was intended to facilitate The FX Firm's expansion, and enhance its offering as an efficient, secure facilitator of cross-border payroll services.Earthport said its technology would enable The FX Firm to deliver faster, cheaper cross-border payments."We have selected Earthport as it is the leading facilitator of high volume cross-border payments," said The FX Firm chairman Rob Munro."Its highly sophisticated payments network enhances our cross-border payroll offering to corporates while enabling our planned business expansion," he added.Earthport's Europe president Daniel Marovitz said he was delighted to announce the deal."We are uniquely placed to underpin The FX Firm's cross-border transactions and to ensure it continues to provide secure payments at a competitive rate," he said.The announcement did little to appease traders, however. At 1525 GMT, shares in Earthport were down 1.39% to 17.75p, having pared back some of its losses earlier in the afternoon.