HSBC has entered an alliance with online communications company Yahoo! to deliver a co-branded, person-to-person, payments system to consumers. The financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
Under the agreement, Yahoo! PayDirect will allow consumers to send and receive money at home and overseas via email. They will link their credit cards, debit cards or bank accounts to their secure Yahoo! PayDirect account at HSBC.
Consumers will sign up for Yahoo! PayDirect across HSBC's online services and the Yahoo! network. Yahoo! PayDirect can also be used to collect contributions to group or charity events and pay for shopping and auctions purchases electronically.
Roberta Arena, head of global e-business, HSBC, says: "The evolution of payments is a critical component of e-commerce and essential for the industry to meet its promise."
Subject to regulatory approvals, Yahoo! PayDirect with HSBC will operate in the US later this year and will be extended to the other countries in 2001.
Yahoo! and HSBC also aim to make Yahoo! PayDirect technology available to other companies to extend e-commerce and person-to-person payment capabilities.
Yahoo! and HSBC will mount a comprehensive online and offline marketing programme to each others' customers. Yahoo! has 200 million consumers while HSBC has 28 million.