Wednesday April 5, 8:08 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: IBChannel.com
Xpedian, Bank of America, and Ariba Announce
Plans to Launch New Business to Business Financial
Web Sites
IRVINE, Calif., April 5, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- The dramatic acceleration in the deployment of buy-side, sell-side and
marketplace B2B solutions is increasing demand for a new generation of Internet-centric financial services that can be
integrated to new B2B systems and business processes. Xpedian, Inc. (OTCBB:XPDN - news) announced Tuesday that it is
nearing completion of www.EstatePlanet.com, a premier online B2B Financial Services and Estate Planning Portal.
The portal is designed to inform financial services professionals and their potential clients of the needs, benefits and strategies of
estate planning, while also driving traffic to www.Instrust.com, and other featured sites that will be phased in by Xpedian, Inc.
``We intend for www.EstatePlanet.com to be the first place that financial services professionals look for quick and complete
answers to their financial and estate planning questions,' said Dale Chapman, President and CEO of Xpedian, Inc. ``The site is
slated to grow to over 500 pages of content and will be supported by both direct sales efforts and advertising in industry trade
magazines and publications,' said Chapman.
Xpedian, Inc. is a business-to-business marketing organization. They will market their interactive approach to estate and
financial planning via the Internet, providing CPAs, Insurance Agents, Stockbrokers, Attorneys, Human Resource
Departments, and Financial Planners with sophisticated interactive solutions for their clients. Their systems will empower
financial services professionals by providing(1) State-of-the-art products and services at a fraction of the cost and time of
current sources; (2) Educational tools and resources to guide planners through the process; and (3) All necessary
documentation to enact plans, including support for plan implementation. Xpedian, Inc. acquired licensing agreements for the
distribution/marketing rights to sophisticated Artificial Intelligence.
Also on Tuesday, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - news), America's largest bank, and Ariba, Inc. (Nasdaq:ARBA - news),
the leading business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce platform provider, today jointly announced an agreement designed to
broaden and accelerate B2B eCommerce adoption through an unprecedented, comprehensive suite of Internet-centric B2B
financial services and a new B2B marketplace for Bank of America's customers.
Under terms of the strategic alliance:
-- Bank of America will create a B2B financial services engine
to be deployed first on the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform to
globally deliver a full range of B2B financial services on
the Internet;
-- A new company, Banc of America Marketplace LLC, will be formed
to create and operate a B2B marketplace, powered by the Ariba
platform, that Bank of America will make available to its two
million business customers;
-- Bank of America will use the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform
throughout its worldwide operations as its interface to the
marketplace and to efficiently manage its own procurement
operations on the Internet with its global supplier base.
-- Bank of America and Ariba will share in transaction-based
revenue streams from the B2B financial services engine and
Bank of America Marketplace.
Bank of America plans to create a B2B financial services engine, deployed on the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform, designed to
deliver a comprehensive suite of financial services. Delivered as open Ariba B2B Commerce Services, these financial services
will target horizontal and vertical marketmakers, marketplace participants and individual buying organizations, whether they are
using the Ariba platform or other solutions.
The services are expected to include electronic invoicing capabilities; extensive payments capabilities such as card, Automated
Clearing House (ACH), wire transfer and foreign exchange; information integration via Web, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
and Extensible Markup Language (XML), and security and authentication. Bank of America is the leader in wire transfers,
processing US$650 billion daily through more than 120,000 wire transfers globally. Bank of America also leads the industry in
deployment of B2B digital certificates and is a founding member of Identrus, a global authentication consortium.
Banc of America Marketplace LLC
A new company, Banc of America Marketplace LLC, will be formed as a subsidiary of Bank of America to create and
operate a B2B marketplace. Banc of America Marketplace will provide web-based procurement automation and selling
solutions targeting the bank's two million business clients.
The initial focus will be to serve the bank's small and medium-size business customers, providing access to the bank's preferred
suppliers at negotiated contract prices while creating more efficient procurement services. Subsequently, Bank of America plans
to offer these customers additional products and services that will further leverage this infrastructure. The bank plans to develop
vertical communities within the marketplace to serve the special buying and selling needs of customers in specific industries.
Once developed, the marketplace is also expected to provide the bank's two million business customers with access to buy and
sell to each other using various pricing mechanisms from traditional catalog pricing to exchanges which use bid/ask pricing or
auction pricing. The bank anticipates developing the ability for customers to use these services through a variety of desktop or
wireless Internet-enabled devices.
IBC (www.ibchannel.com) is the premier business and finance portal providing investors with a one stop destination for
business and financial information including free news, quotes, charts, commentary from top analysts and online corporate
profiles and research. Interactive Business Channel Inc. develops and invests in new technology companies and new technology
incubators. IBC may have equity positions in the companies mentioned herein please visit www.ibchannel.com/disclaimer.
CONTACT: www.ibchannel.com
Whitney Klein
Director of Operations
whitney@ibchannel.com
949-442-8919 |
