6/12/2003

UseMyBank is buzzing with activity in the online real-time debit payments world

June 12, 2003
News Wire

The next generation payment leader in online real-time debit payments, UseMyBank, today has announced that its has completed its first phase of objectives.

Over the past six months, UseMyBank has been diligently marketing to major online merchants, sellers, and payment processors on the significance of online real-time debit payments. The key point has been that credit card processing has become more and more difficult for new online ventures to acquire, and even more challenging for existing sites to keep. The bottom line, chargebacks, fraud, and the fears are not going away any time soon with credit.

The fact is, a study conducted by the International Banking Association, shows debit transactions took over traditional cheque transactions in Canada within seven years. The study indicates that in 1990, one-third of transactions conducted by consumers were done with cheques. This was the same year Interac introduced debit in Canada. In 1997, the tables had turned, with less than 1% of all transactions done by cheques, debit grew to one-third of all payments made in the traditional brick-and-mortar world. During the same period, credit card transactions remained constant at one-third. The remaining transactions were done with cash and other non-standard means. UseMyBank is the first online payment provider to take advantage of this specific phenomenon for the Internet!

“This opportunity has presented UseMyBank with a tremendous challenge to quickly expand its market share in the online payments arena”, said Joseph Iuso, President of UseMyBank. UseMyBank’s approach has been to specifically target certain key verticals which require online payments processing the most. Specifically, travel, education, auctions, online goods and services, associations and entertainment to name a few. The primary focus has been to zoom in on the industry leaders and specifically inform them that by adding debit they can increase their overall sales by up to 20%.

“This approach has allowed UseMyBank to focus on the initial early adopters of online real-time payments”, said Brian Crozier, VP Business Development of UseMyBank. The key has been to determine the specific markets and market leaders for the next phase.

UseMyBank has progressively modified, upgraded, and enhanced its initial offering. Some of these include:

• acquiring 100’s of sellers,
• adding by-pass functionality for sellers who already have the buyer information,
• enhanced online reporting and download functionality,
• branding capabilities for sellers,
• industrial servers capable of handling over 10,000 payments a day,
• search engine optimization for key words,
• US dollar currency conversion, and
• compliance research into the CPA’s newly drafted one-time payments proposal.

In the coming weeks and months, UseMyBank will be focused on the next phase. Specifically;

• targeting and solidifying specific verticals to build depth within the client base,
• targeting online billers for automated bill payments and branding at their own site,
• additional Canadian Financial Institutions,
• first round of financing for a quicker expansion,
• US and European penetration, and
• B2B payments.

“Its all pretty much business as usual for the moment, the key to our next phase is online Billers”, said Brian Crozier. In Canada alone, there were over 113 million manual online bill payments done in 2001, according to the Canadian Bankers Association, and over 700 million manual online bill payments in the US for 2002, according to Gartner research. Its is one of the fastest growing markets and UseMyBank is poised to speed this along by providing their Online Automated Payment Interface to the existing Billers.

For further information;
Website: http://www.UseMyBank.com/
Email: info@UseMyBank.com
Phone: 416-727-3806