Cardservice International Teams With KPMG to Provide Businesses With Secure Payment Processing; First Beneficiaries Are Small and Mid-Sized Minority-Owned Firms.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 1999--

KPMG LLP, a worldwide leader in business consulting, and Cardservice International (CSI) Inc., a premier provider of secured payment processing on the Internet, today announced at Fall Internet World `99 a joint effort to provide eCommerce business solutions to the exploding small-business marketplace.

With more than 4 million businesses that have less than 200 employees in the United States alone, the marketplace is vast. By combining KPMG's eCommerce Transactions capabilities with Cardservice International's industry-leading small-business payment-processing capabilities, this effort focuses attention and resources in a unique and powerful way to serve small and medium-sized businesses.

The first commerce service provider (CSP) to endorse the partnership is Nexgen Solutions. A small business based in Silver Spring, Md., Nexgen offers a unique solution for enabling "communities of interest" to open their own branded Internet malls and virtual storefronts at a very affordable price.

"The U.S. Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) is excited about the relationship formed between Nexgen, KPMG and CSI," said MBDA Director Courtlan Cox. "The relationship should help to level the playing field for small and minority businesses, giving them greater access to an area that is extremely vital for their survival in the future -- which is eCommerce."

"KPMG's eCommerce Transactions practice is applying our knowledge and infrastructure developed in building the world's largest eCcommerce site at netAid.org to enable those smaller businesses to focus on their core competencies, while still being provided best-of-breed eCommerce services," said Tom Patterson, eCommerce Transactions partner at KPMG.

"Primary among these is the ability to quickly and easily provide secure payment processing. Through our partnership with CSI and Nexgen, we are able to create tremendous added value to these merchants, now and into the future," added Patterson.

Through the relationship with Nexgen Solutions, CSI and KPMG will gain greater access to small businesses within "communities of interest." The first beneficiaries of this relationship will be the subscribers to various special-interest publications supported by Nexgen Solutions, which includes thousands of minority small-business owners.

The team was also lauded by Chuck Burtzloff, president and chief executive officer of Cardservice International. "The vigorous growth of eCommerce so far has largely been created by small businesses," Burtzloff said. "For this unprecedented growth to continue, trust and security concerns must be addressed. KPMG and CSI provide a strong solution for those merchants, as well as the CSPs who serve them, to accelerate their growth."

Nexgen Solutions sees the coalition as a means to help its customers achieve their goals more quickly and effectively. Said Ed Howlette, president and CEO of Nexgen Solutions, "I have even more confidence in the ability for our customers to succeed with the added value that our solution has obtained through the CSI/KPMG joint effort."

For more information on CSI, visit www.cardservice.com; for KPMG, go to www.kpmg.com; and for Nexgen Solutions, www.ngsinc.com.