Planet Payment Partner With Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions

Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions has formed a strategic partnership with Planet Payment to develop and deploy time-of-sale, or "dynamic", currency conversion services to Fifth Thirds merchant customers, particularly those in the retail, hospitality and e-commerce sectors. It is anticipated that the currency conversion service will be available towards the end of the first quarter 2004. Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions will initially focus deployment of the currency conversion service to its leading retail merchant customers, from which there is a strong demand for the service. Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions new currency conversion service identifies a transaction from a merchants foreign customer and displays the transaction in the customers local currency before the customer has completed the transaction. Planet Payment, a leader in the burgeoning new field of dynamic currency conversion, provides the conversion at an exchange rate that is generally more favorable than that which would be offered by the customers credit card provider. The customer is presented with the choice of completing the transaction in the merchants currency or the customers home currency. If the customer chooses to pay in his home currency, the merchants point-of-sale solution will print a receipt including transaction details in that currency. The cardholder will be billed on his credit card statement in the exact amount that appeared on the receipt, while the merchants financial accounting and reporting will remain in its currency. Historically, a foreign customer paying with a credit card at a Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions merchant could only pay in the merchants currency, with the customers credit card provider performing the conversion after the transaction is completed, at an exchange rate not known to the customer. The merchants foreign customer does not learn the final cost of a transaction until receiving a billing statement at the end of the month. Planet Payments dynamic currency conversion service addresses this problem by presenting the customer with the information and ability to make an informed choice of currency in which to complete a transaction, while still at the point-of-sale, in full compliance with applicable Visa and MasterCard regulations.