Bank of America forms online business alliances

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Bank of America has recently formed strategic online alliances with Biztro Inc. and Ariba Inc. to provide services particularly targeted to small to medium-size businesses. |ret||ret||tab|

Bank of America announced May 2 its alliance with Biztro Inc., a provider of online services for emerging businesses. Bank of America also acquired an equity stake in Biztro, serving as the lead investor in a third round of equity funding for the company, according to a release from Bank of America.|ret||ret||tab|

Under terms of the alliance, Bank of America will offer the Biztro business operations platform to its 1.7 million small business customers through its Business Center portal. |ret||ret||tab|

"Our partnership with Bank of America will allow us to further strengthen our financial services offerings, as well as increase the availability of our operating platform to small businesses nationwide," said Navin Chaddha, chairman and chief executive officer of Biztro, in the press release.|ret||ret||tab|

The Biztro Business Operations Platform eases administrative burdens for small-business managers and employees by allowing them to automate many of their day-to-day activities via the Web. |ret||ret||tab|

Through Biztro, employees have immediate access to key operations functions and checklists that standardize administrative and human resource processes, including insurance and benefit plans, payroll, employee expense reporting and office supply management.|ret||ret||tab|

"We believe our alliance with Biztro will create new value for our small business customers by providing the tools and information they need to run their businesses better and smarter," said Jim Lientz, president of Bank of America's Mid-South Banking Group.|ret||ret||tab|

Meanwhile, in April, Bank of America announced an agreement with Ariba Inc., a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform provider. |ret||ret||tab|

The purpose of the alliance is to broaden and accelerate B2B e-commerce adoption through a comprehensive suite of Internet-centric B2B financial services and a new B2B marketplace for Bank of America's customers.|ret||ret||tab|

The terms of the strategic alliance, as detailed in a Bank of America release, are as follows:|ret||ret||tab|

Bank of America will create a B2B financial services engine to be deployed first on the Ariba B2B commerce platform to globally deliver a full range of B2B financial services on the Internet.|ret||ret||tab|

These services will target horizontal and vertical market makers, marketplace participants and individual buying organizations, whether they are using the Ariba platform or other solutions. |ret||ret||tab|

Services are expected to include invoicing capabilities; payments capabilities such as Automated Clearing House, wire transfer and exchange; information integration via Web, Electronic Data Interchange and Extensible Markup Language, and security and authentication.|ret||ret||tab|

A new company, Banc of America Marketplace LLC, will be formed to create and operate a B2B marketplace, powered by the Ariba platform, that Bank of America will make available to its 2 million business customers.|ret||ret||tab|

The initial focus will be on the bank's small and medium-size business customers, providing access to the bank's preferred suppliers at negotiated contract prices while creating more efficient procurement. |ret||ret||tab|

Subsequently, Bank of America plans to offer these customers additional products and services that will further leverage this infrastructure. |ret||ret||tab|

The bank also plans to develop vertical communities within the marketplace to serve the special buying and selling needs of customers in specific industries.|ret||ret||tab|

Bank of America will use the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform throughout its worldwide operations as its interface to the marketplace and to efficiently manage it own procurement operations on the Internet with its global supplier base.|ret||ret||tab|

The Ariba platform is expected to aggregate most of the bank's approximately $7 billion in annual global purchasing from outside suppliers while streamlining its procurement processes.|ret||ret||tab|

Bank of America Inc. and Ariba will share in transaction-based revenue streams generated by the B2B financial services engine and Banc of America Marketplace. |ret||ret||tab|

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