International

WorldPay focusing on Asian SMEs

WorldPay to open Asia-Pacific office in Singapore, aims to spend $23 million into regional developmentSINGAPORE - Regional SMEs will soon have another option to help them set up shop.E-commerce enabler WorldPay has opened an operations centre in Singapore, bringing a range of mutli-currencypayment solutions to Asia.

Written by Sq , Contributor July 28, 2000 at 12:47 p.m. PT

WorldPay to open Asia-Pacific office in Singapore, aims to spend $23 million into regional development

SINGAPORE - Regional SMEs will soon have another option to help them set up shop.

E-commerce enabler WorldPay has opened an operations centre in Singapore, bringing a range of mutli-currency payment solutions to Asia.

The new centre will aid in development of new businesses in the region as well as a customer support call centre for the company's solutions.

To date the company has also provided solutions for Virginbiz.net, PSINet Inc, Freeserve, Sage, Oxfam, The Economist Group, Financial Times, and Mars. It also has relationships with banks like the National Westminster Bank, and Barclays Bank, and is in the process of forming partnerships with local/regional banks.

The partnerships will be focused on allowing SMEs to conduct online transactions, even those engaging in the B2B market. WorldPay intends to invest S$270 million for B2B financing, and act as a guarantor for transactions for their clients.

Banks want to look at risks, said Nick Ogden, CEO for WorldPay, and they usually look at the risk of failure.

When it comes to e-business, trust is the central issue behind online transactions.

WorldPay operates in 54 countries and has never yet had to claim as yet, said Ogden, pointing out that WorldPay does not deal in gambling and pornography, areas which are susceptible to Internet fraud.

ASME sponsorship
WorldPay has also signed up to be the main sponsor for the Rotary-ASME Entrepreneur of the Year award for this year, as well as the next two years.

The award was set up to honor and recognize outstanding achievements of individuals that have significantly developed and grown small to medium entreprises (SMEs) in Singapore.

ABN Amro deal
WorldPay has also signed a deal with the Dutch bank ABN Amro to extend their settlement abilities. This will offer retailers the opportunity of using WorldPay's e-commerce technology to display prices automatically converted in up to 170 currencies but receive payment for the goods sold online in a preferred currency.

What is offered
WorldPay's services include payment processing, merchant acceptance, micro-payment solutions, 'Click and Build' e-commerce applications and pre-integration to any other e-commerce systems including Actinic, Mercatec, Intershop and Microsoft Site Server.

Customers are provided with a secure 128-bit SSL architecture for handling e-commerce transactions, while a micro-payment system enables users to bill and work with smaller denominations.

The 'Click and Build' suite is a webshop builder targeted at newcomers to e-commerce. The suite aids customers to build an entire online e-commerce application.

FuturePay is an online equivalent to repeat billing, which allows companies to take payments for goods and services over a period of time, in both fixed and variable amounts.