Credit Cards Online Information

Miller Brothers, the Doncaster-based group with 40 stores in the UK, has moved from ISDN transmission to an Internet based on-line system. It means credit applications are processed almost instantaneously with responses received within three seconds. "There is less scope for error in transferring information," explains Tony Snape, head of sales at Nova Retail Finance.

"Also, the time advantages over traditional phone or fax authorisation are obvious: applications on-line are processed in seconds while the old method of phone or fax would take two to three minutes."

"The on-line system is first rate," says Martin Foster, managing director of Hiller Brothers. "Arranging a credit scheme for a customer could not be more straightforward. Authorisations are given by Nova over the Internet and we then print off the agreement in store for the customer to sign. The system is flexible and we can see great potential to develop it further."

Black Horse Retail Finance continues to make progress on the back of its on-line system, me2u. David Scott, managing director of Plumbs comments: "We recently changed to Black Horse as we wanted an Internet-based credit system that was easy to use, gave us a quick response and is reliable."

Apart from speed and efficiency on-line credit systems can have other benefits. As Hr Scott says: "Me2u has also increased our finance income."

With its ability to take the majority of the customer information straight from the retailer's Epos system (thus saving duplicate entries for credit), Black Horse's FastTrack service really gave on-line credit authorisation a shot in the arm. So successful has FastTrack been that director of retail finance, Graham Field, reports: "Its been three years since we first introduced FastTrack and we're now approaching 200,000 applications being processed through it. It's now a proven, robust system."

Significant progress has also been made in on-line processing by Halifax Cetelem. "Our ORCA apply on-line processing application has been welcomed in the industry for the speed, accuracy, and efficiency it gives to credit applications in store," says George Taylor, sales and marketing director of Halifax Cetelem.

"Since its launch in February this year take-up among retailers has been rapid, to the point where we are currently processing 70% of our applications on-line and forecasting an increase to 80% through 2003."

# posted by Medical Information : 3:16 AM