Jointly owned by Nissho Iwai Corporation, NTT-X, Inc. and ITX Corporation, the strategically important joint venture, EBISTRADE, Inc., began its business operation in March 2000 as an "Internet sogoshosha" to develop and operate industry-wise Internet marketplaces.

To develop and operate an online marketplace with many small- and medium-size companies participating as sellers and buyers, it is essential to make use of the highly convenient corporate credit card for business-to-business (B-2-B) payments of small amounts.

With this thought in mind, EBISTRADE, Inc., in alliance with Orient Corporation's "Orico Card" which is aggressively launching into e-business, is going to have "EBISTRADE Cards" distributed among the member companies of each of the online marketplaces operated by EBISTRADE, Inc., so that the credit card may be used for business-to-business payments of no more than two million yen each and also for collection of content fees.

There are few plastic cards in B-2-B use in Japan as yet, making EBISTRADE Card the first tie-in credit card to serve many online industry marketplaces in Japan.

Since June 2000, EBISTRADE, Inc., has been operating the "Beitsubo dotcom" (http://www.beitsubo.com) as Japan's first online marketplace for paper and paper boards, distributing among the clients business news from 11 industrial newspapers and providing 24-hour-a-day electronic commerce for more than 500 existing clients as paper makers, printing companies, and their wholesalers and agents.

EBISTRADE Card is scheduled to be used on the e-business site "Sorottemasu" due to be incorporated in "Beitsubo dotocom" in February, and is expected to have 3,000 client firms, with a total of about three billion yen worth of payments made by credit card, for the first year. The use of EBISTRADE Card for small payments of up to two million yen due between e-business clients will help keep EBISTRADE Card as the marketplace operator free from the risk of defaults by buyers, allowing it to operate safely. It will also become possible to streamline in a time-saving manner such business chores as issuing bills, writing off the paid amounts in accounts receivable, informing clients of the payments made out of their bank accounts, and reminding clients of their overdue payments. The buyers also benefit immensely from knowing timely their past purchase records and from saving the trouble of paying money into the payees' bank accounts.

Another thing is that distributing the same EBISTRADE card among the clients of newly added online marketplaces would help give this card an integrated standing of widespread reputation.

To strengthen its functions related to business-to-business commerce, such as payment, transportation & distribution, and credit giving, EBISTRADE, Inc., will continue to aggressively pursue further alliances with those business partners of strategic importance who operate in other business areas than those of EBISTRADE, Inc., In the months and years ahead, EBISTRADE, Inc., will be committed to create new online marketplaces of such added values as would allow the clients to enjoy the maximum benefits with new e-commerce products which will be developed jointly with Orient Corporation in a cooperative effort centering on this EBISTRADE corporate credit card.