Sumitomo Bank and i-Escrow have launched a joint venture company aimed at providing secure transaction and settlement services to Japanese businesses and consumers.
i-Escrow Japan, launched in association with Trans Cosmos and Fujitsu, has already secured preliminary agreements to deliver services to several major auction and e-commerce sites in Japan. The partners claim to have received signed letters of intent to embed safe payment services for @nifty, the largest ISP in Japan; DeNA, which operates the popular Bidders site; Rakuten; and eBay Japan. The company is already providing settlement and logistics support for sports shoe site Nike ID.
The Japanese e-commerce market is estimated to total some $880 billion in 2004. Nobuhiro Aoshima, CEO of i-Escrow Japan, comments: "With the overwhelming demand we're already seeing, we expect to become a key force in bringing Japanese e-commerce - including international B2B, B2C and C2C - to its full potential."
US parent company i-Escrow says it will launch a separate international venture later this week.