|
|
Enron Mail |
FYI only!
< -----Original Message----- < From: Lubowski, Andrzej < Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 12:42 PM < To: Allen, Paul; Dahir, Victor; Gustafson, Pete; Isaacson, Bond; McEwen, < Tony; Onoda, John; Pascarella, Carl; Saeger, Rebecca; Thompson, < Scott(VISAUSA); Vessey, Paul < Subject: Citi, Wells, Enron, S1 and i2 form a B2B venture < < Yesterday, Citigroup, Wells, Enron, i2 and S1 Corp. formed a new firm < FinancialSettlementMatrix.com Inc. to streamline buying, selling and < facilitating payments in business-to-business e-commerce. < The announcement says that "the new company will connect buyers and < sellers in e-marketplaces with payment processing, credit and other < services through multiple participating banks and financial services < companies." < While I don't fully understand yet what this new venture will do and how, < and most importantly, what implications, if any, it may have on Visa, I < have a feeling that this announcement is different than the mass of < publicity seeking B2B plays that we have seen in the last year. < < Enron will provide its broadband network, which allows scalability, and < bypasses the congestion of the public Internet. Enron is highly praised < for its demonstrated ability to radically reorganize existing industries < (energy, commodities, risk management, etc.). < S1 builds customizable Internet financial services platforms and have < heavyweight partners (IBM, Andersen), and invested clients (Citi, Royal < Bank of Canada, Andersen, Allianz, FleetBoston, JP Morgan, State Farm and < Zurich Financial). < Its chairman and CEO, commenting on the venture said: "So far, various < companies have separately offered individual financial services such as < sourcing credit, escrow and payments authentication and processing, but no < one has offered them all together in a multi-bank model. The lack of a < complete financial services solution for e-marketplaces has been a major < inefficiency for B2B e-commerce and a bottleneck for these e-marketplaces, < restricting their transaction volume. FinancialSettlementMatrix.com will < offer a full package of financial services in an open system that can be < seamlessly integrated into any e-marketplace." < < My group, working with others, will try to get a better sense of the < nature of this new beast. On the surface, however, it looks like an < attempt to create a payment pipeline.
|