Re: [ APYM ] ** NEWS AND DD**
Asia Payment Systems, Inc. Signs Agreement with Et-china Limited for Cooperation and Investment in e-Commerce Processing Venture in China
Tuesday July 26, 8:00 am ET
NEW YORK and BEIJING, July 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Asia Payment Systems, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: APYM - News) today announced that it had signed an agreement with Guangdong-based Et-china Limited to cooperate and invest in an online system to process airline ticket sales from Et-china in Shenzhen, China. Et-china built and operates an online e-commerce system in Shenzhen for processing Chinese domestic debit card transactions. The system can accept and process e-commerce transactions from any of the 800 million domestic China debit cards issued across the country.
Et-china is the largest merchant in dollar value for e-commerce transactions in Guangdong Province due to the high volume of online transactions it processes for China Southern Airlines in ticket sales. It is the intention of Asia Pay and Et-china to cooperate in the future to enhance the processing systems and services available to Et-china's customers and to Asia Pay's China domestic and international merchant base.
Asia Pay and Et-china will cooperate to provide both companies with the advanced systems and processing capabilities needed to provide secure, world- class card processing services to Et-china as well as to other merchants. Asia Pay Systems and Et-china will be working closely during the coming months of this year to complete integration of Asia Pay's card processing systems and the Et-china online debit card processing platform.
"We are excited about the opportunity of working with Asia Pay in the project to bring in additional international expertise and its technology. The online travel market is growing very fast in South China, we are confident this cooperation relationship with Asia Pay would be a win-win for both companies," said Matthew Ng, CEO and President of Et-china Limited.
"This agreement opens up a payment processing solution for international e-commerce merchants wanting to expand into the Chinese market and allows Asia Pay to rapidly expand our customer base," said Matt Mecke, President & CEO of Asia Payment Systems, Inc.
"Et-china's e-ticketing joint venture with China Southern Airlines processed a total transaction volume of 2.1B RMB (US$265m) in Guangzhou in 2004 and I expect we will ultimately be able to achieve similar results in Shenzhen," added Mecke.
About Asia Payment Systems
Asia Pay is a USA public company with offices in: New York City; Beijing and Shenzhen in China; and Hong Kong. Asia Pay is developing a credit card processing network that provides clearing services to merchants, oil companies, and financial institutions in China, Japan, and other markets of interest in Asia.
Asia Pay's mission is to be a national provider of world-class third-party processing services in China to bankcard-accepting merchants, issuers of bank credit cards, issuers of petroleum station retail cards, and issuers of merchandise and other retail cards. Systems, hardware, and personnel are now in place as Asia Pay commences delivering service to clients. In addition, the company plans to expand nationwide operations in the China market, which currently has an estimated 800 million debit cards in use, with annual growth of an additional 80+ million cards.
About Et-china
Founded in 2000, Et-china Limited provides air and hotel booking services to individual and corporate travelers. It has been servicing hundreds of blue chip corporate accounts such as Procter & Gamble, Hewlett Packard, etc. since its inception. It has been instrumental in advancing the e-commerce activities of China Southern Airlines, the largest airline group in China. Et-china established an e-ticketing Joint Venture with China Southern Airlines in April 2003. The e-Joint Venture had a total transaction volume of RMB 2.1 billion in 2004 and its daily transaction volume is growing much faster in 2005. Based in Guangzhou, China, Et-china Limited is one of the leading online travel companies in China.
Contacts:
Matt Mecke
President and CEO
Asia Payment Systems, Inc.
Tel.: 866-877-APAY
Fax: 206-470-1150
ir@asiapayinc.comhttp://www.asiapayinc.com
Investor Relations
Sussex Avenue Partners
Tel.: 760-918-5582
Toll-free: 866-312-3924
news@sussexavenuepartners.comhttp://www.sussexavenueprofiles.com
Matthew Ng
CEO and President
Et-china
Tel.: +86 20 38795531
Fax: +86 20 38795532
http://www.et-china.comMatthew.ng@et-china.com
This release was issued through eReleases(TM). For more information, visit
http://www.ereleases.com.
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Source: Asia Payment Systems, Inc.
