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To: Jorjenzak who wrote (1352)	8/16/1999 9:40:00 AM
From: j g cordes	Respond to of 18222

Among various Emails this morning I found this: "- Vendors Address Online Payment In Asia With online payment in Asia still in the formative stage, companies such as FirstEcom.com and eCharge are working either to expand the use of credit cards in Asian cyberspace or develop alternatives. ECharge says next year it will deploy a system in Japan and the rest of Asia that will bypass credit cards by letting consumers buy products at several online merchants and receive one combined bill delivered via the Internet. Merchants will install a payment button on their Web sites that will send certain transactions through eCharge, which acts as a service bureau and keeps personal information of customers who register for the service. They will pay the various online merchants indirectly by going to the eCharge Web site and authorizing one direct debit from their bank accounts. The system will be tested in the United States next month and is expected to be available in the fourth quarter before being introduced to Asia. "It's designed to compete directly with Visa and MasterCard," says eCharge CEO George Fleming, adding that the 1.5% processing fee paid by merchants will be less than the estimated 2% levied by credit-card companies. ECharge plans to spend $125 million on a worldwide promotion of the service, he says. FirstEcom.com, on the other hand, is working in Asian markets to facilitate the use of credit cards on the Web. It signed a deal last month to build and operate a gateway to process credit-card payments for Jetco, a Hong Kong consortium of 51 banks. FirstEcom.com CEO Greg Pek says online credit-card purchases are very limited in Asia because many Web sites accept only cards issued by certain banks allied with that site. The new gateway is slated to become operational in the first quarter of next year. - Gregory Dalton"