15 May 2008 12:10
For immediate release
15th May 2008
Earthport plc ("Earthport" or the "Company")
Agreement with E-Clearing Payment Solutions Pte Limited ("E-Clearing")
Earthport, the global payments utility, is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with eClearing, the market leader in travel payments in Asia. E-Clearing has strong customer relationships with Kuoni, AsiaRooms.com, AsianTrails.com, Agoda.com and AsiaOnline.com.
This agreement is expected to produce in excess of $1m of transactional revenue for Earthport in its first year. E-Clearing in 2007 processed in excess of USD $0.5bn of travel industry transactions at an average transaction value of $200 (therefore approximately 2.5m transactions). In addition, Earthport will also benefit from a revenue stream through foreign exchange.
The E-Clearing Payment Gateway infrastructure will integrate into the Earthport Universal Payments Network (UPN) for deployment to their substantial merchant base across Asia.
E-Clearing will deliver a white-label 'bank payments' service, using Earthport's UPN, to major merchants in the travel industry. This will be provided as an option to the merchant processing capability, which is already delivered to these clients.
James Bergman, Executive Director, Earthport, said: "This is a further example of the size and type of opportunity now available to Earthport. The agreement with E-Clearing provides Earthport's payments' infrastructure to a major payments company in the expanding travel industry."
Mike Harrison, Executive Chairman, Earthport, said: "This agreement continues the positive steps that Earthport is taking as a provider of its payments' infrastructure to international financial institutions."
Agnes Chua, Executive Director, E-Clearing, commented: "We plan to integrate the solution and take it to the market soonest, and resources will be committed to achieve success at the earliest possible time. We are very excited about this partnership, and look forward to a prosperous future together."
-Ends-
| Earthport plc Mike Harrison, Executive Chairman James Bergman, Executive Director | +44 (0)20 7220 9700 |
| Dawnay Day Investment Banking Ltd Nick Lovering, Corporate Finance Adam Pollock, Sales | +44 (0)20 7630 4140 |
| Financial Dynamics Jonathon Brill / Annie Evangeli | +44 (0)20 7831 3113 |
Notes to editors
About Earthport
Earthport (www.earthport.com) specialises in the international transactional marketplace by providing a highly secure, high volume global collection and payment capability. It has been making national and international payments and collections since 1998.
Earthport own, provide and host an international money movement platform called the Universal Payments Network. Using this platform, Earthport makes secure, low cost international bank payments and collections worldwide.
About E-Clearing
E-Clearing (www.e-clearing.com) is a pan-Asia group of companies and one of the leading payment gateways in Asia engaged in clearing card transactions for banks and large merchants since 2002. Their core competence is in acquiring cards including credit, debit, top-up and charge cards, across the entire range of card acquiring infrastructure be it traditional dial-up POS or the latest e-commerce web site.
E-Clearing offers value added services like Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC). They are present across several geographies and enjoy excellent relationships with a number of banks and large merchants. Their technological capabilities are recognised by MasterCard as they are amongst the few PSPs authorised to integrate directly with Mastercard's platform.