American Express has signed an agreement to acquire Atlanta-based Harbor Payments, a privately-held provider of Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) systems. Harbor Payments was formed in 2000 and head quartered in Atlanta with 200 employees. Its technology centre is based in Bangalore and has offices throughout the USA. Its sales channels include Bank of New York among number of large corporates.
Harbor has four platforms, these being:
- invoices – 55 clients including UPS, Kodak, P&G and American Express
- billing – 100+ clients including Chevron
- payments – 100+ clients including Liz Claiborne
- claims –
Invoice Harbour is a web based EIPP solution.
Harbor Payments (name changed from Cyberstarts to Harbor Payments in 2003) has a history of strategic acquisitions:
- 2003 – Acquires Billserv
- 2004 – Acquired Velosant
- 2005 – Acquired assets of Emergis Technologies Inc
As per the press release…..
American Express says the Harbor technology will become the basis of its new suite of ‘source-to-settle’ electronic purchasing systems, named S2S. It will begin marketing the package to corporations in the US in January 2007 and has plans to expand on a global basis later.
"Our clients have been asking American Express to play a broader role in helping them manage expenses and reduce costs across a broad array of purchasing categories. Simply put, we can help clients do more with less," says Gordon Smith, president of American Express Global Commercial Card. "The goal is to help companies automate and seamlessly integrate the multiple steps in the source-to-settle process."
Tags: American+Express, EIPP, Harbor+Payments