Earthport is adding certification authority capabilities to its Internet payment system as part of a multi-million pound deal with Baltimore Technologies.
Under the agreement, Baltimore is to receive between three and five million ordinary shares in AIM-listed earthport, which has developed a server-based wallet system for making bi-directional cash payments over the Internet. Earthport shares are currently trading around the £0.35 mark, significantly down from a 52-week high of £1.38 per share.
Earthport CEO, Jonathan Baile says: "The payment of shares as consideration is significant in reflecting the strong conviction and enthusiasm earthport is meeting in the commercial marketplace."
The company says it will host the new certification capability at eircom's managed services centre in Ireland, where earthport's infrastructure comprises EMC Symmetrix Storage and IBM mainframe S/390 Parallel Enterprise Servers. Earthport has invested heavily in migrating its payments infrastructure from Windows to IBM as it attempts to win big bank backing for its product suite. The migration has not been entirely painless - the company recently lost its CEO and made over 40 staff redundant in an effort to pare back costs ahead of a renewed marketing push.
Seperately, Mviva, the mobile Internet services company backed by UK retailer Carphone Warehouse has signed a two year contract to distribute earthport wallets to its user base. Mviva currently provides online share dealing to European consumers through an agreement with online broker T D Waterhouse.