| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
12 April 2005 |
Bottomline Technologies Surpasses 3,000 BACSTEL-IP Customers
British Pipeline Agency Selects WINBACS-IP; Continued Demand Strengthens Bottomline’s Market Leadership
READING, UK – 12 April 2005 – Bottomline Technologies (NASDAQ: EPAY), a leading global technology provider of financial Business Process Management (fBPM) software and managed services, today announced that the British Pipeline Agency Ltd. has selected Bottomline’s BACSTEL-IP electronic payments service, WINBACS-IP. Bottomline’s BACSTEL-IP solutions are used by more than 3,000 organisations in support of industry-wide compliance efforts prior to the 31 December 2005 BACS migration deadline.
A leading provider of technical and operational solutions for the onshore oil and gas pipeline markets, the British Pipeline Agency will use WINBACS-IP to meet the necessary migration requirements created by BACS, while streamlining existing payment processes to generate long-term business benefits. With over 3,000 BACSTEL-IP customers, Bottomline continues to be the UK’s leading provider of BACS solutions and services.
“As the leader in this category, Bottomline Technologies was highly recommended to us by our bank,” said Peter Davis, Managing Director of British Pipeline Agency, Ltd. “In evaluating Bottomline’s WINBACS-IP, we realised that its ease-of-use and ability to seamlessly integrate with our existing IT systems offered us the most efficient and economical route to migration.”
Bottomline’s BACSTEL-IP solutions are capable of providing extensive payment capabilities to businesses of all sizes and have been approved by BACS. With more than 80 engineers throughout the country, Bottomline is able to complete UK migrations in less than four weeks, thus providing customers with the most efficient route to the new BACSTEL-IP Service.
“The BACS migration deadline is clearly driving the evolution of electronic payments, and our success to date is a testament to our strategy to provide customers with a simple, efficient path to compliance,” said Peter Fortune, President of Bottomline Technologies Europe. “Surpassing 3,000 customers is a great accomplishment, but there are many organisations still evaluating their migration options and we look forward to assisting those businesses in creating the best path.”
About BACS
Established in 1968, BACS Limited (formerly Bankers Automated Clearing Services) is one of the world's largest automated payment clearing houses. Owned by the major UK banks and building societies, BACS' business encompasses the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) processing of Direct Debit, monthly salaries by Direct Credit, Standing Orders and the management of inter-bank network services. There are over 50,000 BACS users that connect directly to the BACS service, including all of the FTSE 100, while a further 60,000 businesses are indirect submitters to BACS through a bureaux. BACS processes over 3.7 billion financial transactions annually with more than 60 million on a peak day. The use of BACS products and services has revolutionised the payments industry and enables more companies than ever to realise the benefits of making automated payments, including cost effectiveness, reliability, convenience and ease of use. Over 90% of UK salaries are paid by Direct Credit. It is used for over 5 million wages every week and over 12 million salaries a month.
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