Online Casino Banking Options to the Fore
March 10, 2009
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Two e-banking service providers have been in the news recently for making strategic alliances to further their cause. One is Citadel Commerce, a subsidiary of ESI Entertainment Systems Inc. The other is Ukash.
Citadel Commerce is best known for its e-wallet myCitadel. Its clients include Unibet, PartyGaming and 888.com. Now Citadel Commerce will partner with PartyGaming and develop a new instant Internet banking solution for them. Citadel Commerce will also integrate this new option with PartyGaming’s operations. One of the main advantages of this new solution from Citadel will be that players will be able to make deposits directly from their personal bank accounts. The solution will support an international base of banks but will not depend on the traditional banking infrastructure. The option will also be cheaper than the ones on offer today. This new solution being developed for PartyGaming is being touted as the new benchmark in the financial services to Internet casinos.
The option has already been tested on a select group of PartyGaming’s VIP customers. According to Gigi Levy, the Chief Executive Officer of Party gaming, the response has been favorable. The customers have found the option user-friendly and effective. The system has a unique mechanism. The players begin by logging into their own Internet bank account rather than the online casino. From their bank account they issue online instructions to transfer funds to a Citadel account that is linked to PartyGaming’s cashier via Citadel’s Payment Assistant.
Ukash has embarked on a strategy of forging tie-ups with telecommunication companies for retailing its prepaid cards from their booths. It has been extremely successful in Spain with the global telecommunications company Telefonica. Now Ukash has announced a similar tie up with Central Telecom in France. The system will work in this manner. Pre-paid Toneo cards will be available at over 30,000 retail outlets in France. Online players can buy these cards and can exchange it for a Ukash voucher online or via SMS through Toneo’s call centre. The players can then use the vouchers to fund their accounts at various online casinos. The advantage of the vouchers is that their use is not restricted to online gambling. They can be used for the purchase of other online goods and services.
Mark Chirnside, the Chief Executive Officer of Ukash, released a statement announcing this tie up with Central Telecom. He said that this agreement was in keeping with their strategy to “reach out to the millions of customers worldwide who favor e-cash.” He explained that alternative e-payment methods were experiencing a tremendous growth for two reasons. The first was that more and more people are taking to online purchasing because of the conveniences it offers. The second was that alternative payment options did away with revealing sensitive information like credit card numbers. Chirnside said that with the growth in the market as a whole there is a growth in the demand for Ukash as well. |
