Here's a news release from yesterday. Looks good.
Mike
Attention Business Editors:
Globel Direct, inc. and payANYbill.com Partner to Provide On-Line
Bill Payment Services
Globel Direct to offer Electronic Bill Presentation and
Payment e-commerce solution for business to provide regular online
invoice viewing and payment option for its billing customers;
Globel negotiating equity position in payANYbill.com to strengthen
alliance
CALGARY, AB, TORONTO, ON, Feb. 24 /CNW/ - Globel Direct, inc. (GBD:CDNX):
Globel Direct, inc. (``Globel') announced today the creation of a strategic
partnership and channel marketing agreement with payANYbill.com
(``payANYbill') that will enable Globel to jointly market payANYbill's
proprietary EBPP product PABservicebureau to its customers through its
website, sales force and other alliances. This new Web-centric solution will
allow Globel's existing customers, many of whom are small to mid-tier billers,
to offer their regular invoices on-line for viewing and payment by their
customers at their convenience. payANYbill, a leading EBPP solutions
provider, will market to its customers, Globel's leading array of services
thereby effectively doubling each company's market opportunity.
The web-based customer-centric solution integrates Globel's existing
robust, and highly flexible data processing and print technology with the
convenience of the Internet to provide the choice of how to review
transactional information and pay bills. This solution, using a collaboration
software process, will allow customers to utilize the right resource when
deciding how to offer choice to their customers. This joint service is
scheduled to be available immediately.
A recent market survey by Mckinsey & Company found that EBPP could save
billers, customers and financial institutions involved in the billing process
more than $2 billion by year 2002. In January 1999, Jupiter Communications
predicted that more than 15 million U.S. households would receive electronic
bills by 2002. Killen & Associates estimated that 60 billion repetitive bills
are generated annually worldwide. By 2005 one-third of all repetitive bills
will be presented through the Internet.
``Through our recently created New Media division, Globel is dedicated to
developing new proprietary technologies, channel innovation and services for
e-commerce which will allow us to host, manage and run e-business transactions
for our customers. This newly integrated EBPP service will allow us to move
services to the Internet, while at the same time capitalize on our historical
relationships with our customers by offering them choice. We currently
produce over 1 million bills a month for our customers and we see great
benefits to them with this flexibility. While initially this service will be
offered to existing customers, we will be working on adding new customers as
we become an important dot-com supplier.' says JR Richardson, President of
Globel Direct. ``While a small part of Globel's business is due to the
Internet now, our strong position with established businesses should put us in
a good position to be chosen as a technology supplier to these companies as
they build their own e-commerce businesses. EBPP is all about leveraging
technology and reinventing the billing process. By partnering with
payANYbill's Canadian-developed technology, we are immediately able to offer a
product that is a complete billing solution through the Internet.'
``We chose payANYbill for a number of reasons', says Mr. Richardson.
``Beyond their excellent technology, they offer access to a high-profile
pedigree of Internet executives through their Board of Directors that include
Jim Tobin, President of the Internet incubator company Itemus Inc. This
relationship will allow Globel Direct to widen its scope of services to other
Internet companies nurtured through the Itemus incubation process as their
needs for our ``bricks and mortar' capabilities increase'. Along with Mr.
Tobin, a former President and CEO of BCE Emergis and former President of
Hummingbird Communications, Itemus is backed by an impressive list of other
partners including Rory Holland and Dave Schultz, founders of Internet
incubator IdeaPark Ventures Inc. and Curtis Holister, CEO of Internet Service
Provider Intrasoft. Beyond Itemus' investment in Internet start-ups, it will
also offer assistance to traditional firms to help them expand their
e-commerce business. ``Globel should benefit from this association as we move
into content development and licensing arrangements through our New Media
unit,' says Mr. Richardson.
``payANYbill's proprietary application service provider (ASP) model
allows unprecedented ability for Globel to easily deliver the benefits of EBPP
to our customers by enabling billers that have previously been excluded from
utilizing EBPP access to a robust service,' said Ed Gades, Vice President,
Emerging Technologies for Globel. ``We researched the available solutions in
the marketplace and payANYbill's solution won hands-down over the competition.
Their innovative approach to our needs played a critical role in making the
decision on how to offer online billing as a real option for our thousands of
customers whom produce millions of bills annually. For Globel's customers,
both existing and future, who rely on us to offer innovative solutions, this
new eProduction environment that bridges the workflow gap, adds enormous value
to the wide range of services they already enjoy. This partnership
demonstrates Globel's leadership in enabling the delivery of services through
e-commerce based companies.'
``Our new relationship with Globel Direct is very exciting for
payANYbill', said Phouc Ho, President of payANYbill.com. ``Globel is one of
Canada's leading billing service providers and their early adoption of our
product, PABservicebureau, brings instant credibility to our company. To
partner with Globel means that we can immediately offer our service to a wide
array of actual customers, something every dot-com company is looking for. It
is the beginning of building critical mass. Online billing has only about a 1%
adoption rate so the ability to grow our joint market is huge. We look
forward to working closely with Globel's New Media unit to produce proprietary
web-enabled solutions to the benefit of both companies and their respective
customers. Our companies have begun initial discussions to strengthen this
alliance that may include Globel taking an equity position in payANYbill.com.
With Globel's real customers, its print to mail billing technologies and our
EBPP solution this strategic partnership should have far reaching implications
for the two companies.'
payANYbill's PABservicebureau Internet billing service offers very rapid
EBPP deployment for small to mid-tier billers with a total implementation time
of 30 to 90 days from contract signing to first bill. This period covers all
of the necessary tops for a complete EBPP implementation, including designing
the online bill, setting up the interfaces to an existing billing system,
presenting the bills, promoting the service and launching the process of
enrolling customers. Costs include a one-time start-up fee and a low
transaction fee for each bill presented. The PABservicebureau solution
provides immediate impact to the biller's bottom line, while enabling the path
to Open Financial Exchange (OFX) consolidation. The end result is a solution
that delivers tremendous business advantages, while making bill delivery and
bill payment simple and convenient for consumers.
About Globel: Globel Direct, inc. is a business and technology
communications company providing innovative communications solutions for the
direct marketing of products and services. The Company utilizes current
technologies in print direct mail, telephony call centre systems and through
the Company's New Media division, content development and licensing for
Internet presentation designed to enhance existing relationships between our
customers and their customers. Globel Direct, inc. is pursuing an internal
growth strategy as well as making strategic acquisitions in pursuit of its
goal to become a leading direct-to-customer communications company. Globel
Direct, inc. is a public company whose shares are listed for trading on the
``Tier 1' of the Canadian Venture Exchange under the stock symbol: ``GBD'.
The Company has a total of 17,552,152 shares outstanding fully diluted. For
more information about Globel Direct, inc. visit www.globel.ca and
www.investorfile.com.
About payAnybill: payAnybill is an application service provider that
offers turnkey electronic bill presentment and payment billing services to
small and mid-tier recurring billers in industries such as telecommunications,
utility, insurance, and financial services. payAnybill's PABservicebureau
service provides a complete EBPP solution, including online bill design, email
notification, bill presentment, payment processing, enrollment marketing, and
customer care. The Toronto-based company was founded in 1999, and maintains
research, development, and sales offices in Toronto, Canada. For more
information about payAnybill, please visit payanybill.com.
The Canadian Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the
information contained herein.
-30-
For further information: J.R. Richardson, President, Direct:
403-531-6579, Fax: 403-531-6560 Toll-Free: 1-800-551-5721, e-mail:
jr@globel.ca; Investor Relations, Gerry Wimmer, InvestorFile.com(TM),
Direct: 416-360-8895, Fax: 416-360-0787, Toll-Free: 1-888-894-8222, e-mail:
gbd@investorfile.com |
