Thursday March 30, 9:04 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
ECHO's Check Subsidiary and National Check Network Sign Agreement
AGOURA HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 2000--Electronic Clearing House, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECHO - news) is pleased to announce that National Check Network (NCN), one of the top check verification associations in the United States, signed a one-year agreement with ECHO's subsidiary, Magic Software Development (``Magic'), to provide verification services to NCN members and their customers.
National Check Network, Inc. is an association of over 60 collection agencies that pool their respective negative and positive check writing data utilizing Magic's software and database interface systems. NCN member agencies promote check verification to merchant locations and presently have over 10,000 merchants utilizing the NCN service. NCN merchants process in excess of 3,500,000 transactions a month and NCN has been recognized as one of the top five check processing associations in the nation by various industry publications.
Since beginning its association with NCN in 1994, Magic has developed the software that operates in terminals provided to the merchants and the software that operates in the host-based master database maintained at Magic headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Magic engineers also oversee the network systems over which the NCN services are provided.
``Magic is pleased the association with NCN as its processor and network manager will continue for another year under the new agreement,' stated Kris Winckler, President of Magic. ``The flexibility, reliability and geographic coverage provided through the NCN verification service, we believe, gives the NCN merchant a real value over the few competing services in the market today.'
Magic Software Development was acquired by Electronic Clearing House in April, 1999. Magic provides check verification and several other check services that include check conversion, check guarantee, check re-presentment and check collection services through an operations center located in Albuquerque. Working with several banks, Magic submits captured data directly to the Federal Reserve's Automated Clearing House and coordinates all the settlement and reporting functions related thereto.
Electronic Clearing House, Inc. provides credit card processing, cash advance services, check guarantee, check verification, check conversion, inventory tracking and/or various Internet services to over 41,000 retail merchants, U-Haul dealers and casinos across the nation. ECHO also designs, develops and integrates software and point-of-sale hardware that is utilized as credit card processing terminals, automated money order dispensers, inventory tracking devices, and casino cash advance systems.
To take advantage of the ``safe harbor' provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, you are hereby cautioned that this release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual operations and results may differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements made by the Company |
