Chargitdial strikes a note with darkerthanblue.com; Music web site uses GIB's online payment technology to enable interaction.

M2 PRESSWIRE-13 November 2000-Global Internet Billing: Chargitdial strikes a note with darkerthanblue.com; Music web site uses GIB's online payment technology to enable interaction (C)1994-2000 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:13112000

Global Internet Billing, the UK's leading online payment solutions provider, has announced a partnership with darkerthanblue.com, a web site devoted to black music and urban culture.

GIB's ChargitDial adds the price of a good or service to a customers phone bill, and will be used to charge for entry to competitions on the web site.

darkerthanblue.com offers a comprehensive service including music features, reviews, and discussion forums. darkerthanblue.com recently acquired exclusive material from R. Kelly and an interview with Lennox Lewis, helping the site to achieve over 1 million hits a month.

GIB's ChargitDial technology allows payment to be added to the customers telephone bill. A file is simply downloaded in seconds from the Internet, free of charge, and the ChargitDial payment option is selected. ChargitDial then disconnects the existing dial-up connection used for browsing, and connects instead to GIB's Internet Service Provider Network which allows payment to proceed. ChargitDial then manages the entire payment process.

When the transaction is complete they are automatically returned to their original ISP and web session.

darkerthanblue.com will use ChargitDial to facilitate 'drop' charges, a flat rate, one-off charge for competition entry. The cost of entry to the darkerthanblue.com competitions will be a standard 50p. Having decided to use ChargitDial for competitions, darkerthanblue.com are also considering it's potential in charging for MP3 downloads.

Nigel Wallbridge, CEO of GIB commented "Our partnership with darkerthanblue.com confirms ChargitDial's credentials as a flexible and effective means of making online interaction both enticing for the customer and profitable for our client. ChargitDial facilitates a smooth, secure transaction with the minimum of effort for the customer, simply allowing them to access the information they want without complications or the need for any extra input."

About GIB

Global Internet Billing (GIB), the world's leading Internet payment solutions provider, is committed to offering consumers and retailers a range of products and services that facilitates easy and secure payment when transactions are made on the Net. GIB are currently one of the successes of the British e-commerce industry and with an annualised turnover of GBP35m and profits of GBP14m, GIB has recently been valued at GBP350m.

A UK based company, GIB launched in October 1999. GIB provides a suite of online payment mechanisms for all values of goods and services bought across the Internet. GIB have focused on devising various mechanisms such as adding the cost of purchases a phone bill, smart cards, pre pay cards, secure credit and debit cards. This will considerably reduce, and in some cases eradicate, the risk of fraud many consumers have experienced when paying for goods and services on the Internet. Each product is designed to cater for the needs of differing e-commerce industries.

CONTACT: Louise Mason, Harvard Centro Tel: +44 (0)20 7 494 6100 e-mail: louise@harvard.co.uk

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