Internet authentication firm VeriSign has entered an alliance with e-payments group eOne Global to jointly develop and co-market online payment systems for B2B marketplaces and financial institutions.
As part of the overall agreement, VeriSign is to make a $20 million equity investment in eOne Global and its SurePay business. EOne Global is majority owned by credit card processor First Data Corporation.
The two companies say they will integrate their B2B technology to deliver a "best of breed" offering via SurePay's patent-pending end-to-end payment system to business-to-business exchanges, enterprises and financial institutions.
SurePay says it will market VeriSign's managed payment gateway to First Data's financial institution clients and other distribution partners. First Data has relationships with 2.5 million merchant locations and 1400 card issuers.
In return, VeriSign will integrate First Data's patented VirtualApp technology, an online merchant account application and decisioning tool, into its merchant payments platform and will also market First Data's payment processing services to its customers, including its substantial domain name customer base.
Stratton Sclavos, president and CEO of VeriSign says that "customers will be able to leverage a highly scalable solution set for Internet authentication, payments and transaction validation".
The SurePay payments solution is described as an integrated suite of products, including: registration, authentication, trade financing, secure payments processing and settlement, and customisable reporting. It also has the technology to enable wireless payments, or mobile commerce.
SurePay and VeriSign say they will jointly develop tools to enable developers to integrate SurePay's B2B solution with third-party interfaces in order to route information and payment data between relevant parties in an XML format.