Microsoft Selects GlobalCollect for Its Payment Processing

GlobalCollect is the only payment service provider able to offer an online real time bank account validity check. This check is performed against continuously updated account information databases and is particularly useful for alternative payments to credit cards such as bank transfers and direct debit transactions. GlobalCollect offers bank account validity checks for Germany, the United Kingdom and France to start with. Other countries will be rolled out next year. Payment alternatives to credit cards are increasingly used by online retailers, especially for the collection of online European payments. According to Forrester Research 36% of European online shoppers did not own a credit card in 2003, and more than half of European credit card owners did not use it to buy online. GlobalCollect has specialized in alternative payment methods and acknowledges that online retailers offering more than credit card payments increase their response rate of on average 30%. Security is still a major concern for consumers and online retailers, and the possibilities offered by the online bank account validation give an extra advantage to the already increasingly popular bank transfer or direct debit online payments. Sometimes these payment methods are indeed the only way to reach consumers in countries where credit cards are regarded as highly suspicious way to pay, as in Eastern Europe and Asia for example.