Mountain View, CA November 14, 2002 In a bid to expand its services to the small and medium business market (SMB), CyberSource Corp., a provider of electronic payment and risk management solutions, said it is developing channel alliances with service providers, including banks, hosting services and technology providers.
In addition, CyberSource will offer its enterprise-class payment services to the SMB market, which it claimed is a currently underserved group of customers.
The company explained that small businesses and providers that support the smaller merchants and their service providers cite growing problems with available payment service offerings, including processing downtime, errors, poor support and lack of security. Service providers that aggregate thousands of these businesses are particularly affected by these shortcomings.
"There's a high level of dissatisfaction with the current payment offerings in the SMB market," said Bill McKiernan, chairman and CEO of CyberSource. "We're hearing from a number of aggregators serving these customers that they have the same need for the highest quality payment services and support as our traditional enterprise accounts."
CyberSource said its new initiative provides simplified access to the company's electronic payment processing and fraud detection services while also incorporating a number of features specifically targeted to the needs of smaller, online businesses and their service providers. These include fully automated merchant registration, merchant self-help tools, reseller support tools and go-to-market support.
As the first example of the new CyberSource SMB initiative, the company has formed an alliance with San Diego-based Miva Corp., developer of the electronic storefront platform for small businesses. Founded in 1996, Miva has over 60,000 merchant licenses serviced by a network of over 1,000 resellers such as Internet service providers and hosting companies.
Through this alliance, CyberSource has developed a payment gateway, Miva Payment, which integrates the new CyberSource small business offering into Miva's electronic storefront interface, Miva Merchant. Miva Payment, the storefront's default payment solution, offers merchants gateway registration, implementation and management from the Miva Merchant interface. The underlying CyberSource service, according to the company, offers flexibility in processor and payment service selection. Users of Miva Payment can also elect CyberSource's Smart Authorization, a tool that reduces the merchant's exposure to fraud.
"Our customer base is growing rapidly, not just in number, but in size of operation," said Joe Austin, CEO of Miva. "These people are telling us they need online performance and dependability. We have an online merchant's solution, and by leveraging CyberSource's strengths, including their reliability and security, we offer a new payment service that tens of thousands of online businesses can profit from immediately."
