Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 3rd September 2001

Comtrust, the e-business infrastructure unit of Etisalat has further enhanced its services to merchants in the UAE who are adopting e-commerce, with the introduction of its Store Payment Interface (SPI) - part of the Company's Secure Access Package.

The new product facilitates easy and rapid implementation of payment service through an indigenously developed application, making easy the integration between the customer's online applications and Comtrust's payment services.

"SPI provides a high-level interface for secure communication between an Internet Merchant's Server and Comtrust Payment System,' explains Omran Sultan Al Owais, General Manager of Comtrust. "It is an end user solution that greatly reduces the effort required on the customer's part to integrate a server with the Comtrust payment system for the secure authorisation and capture of the credit card transactions."

In the past Comtrust clients (merchants) were provided with the specifications to enable them to integrate their on-line business into the company's payment gateway. However they had to undertake this work themselves and this was a time consuming process.

Now, through SPI, Comtrust supplies the entire solution, taking another major worry away from the customer. It is quick and easy to install and requires neither any functional understanding of the payment system nor any knowledge of cryptography or socket programming.

Comtrust is committed to smoothen the transition from bricks and mortar trading to e-commerce. "Only by simplifying processes, such as this, will we be able to ensure that the growth and success of e-commerce and online business within the UAE and across the region will continue," concludes Mr.Omran.