Merchants: Card Verifier Markets Itself on Fast Response

ICVerify Inc., a credit card verification company, wants to parlay three years of experience implementing verification software at golf courses and a Utah ski resort into work for other merchants and banks.

The Oakland, Calif.-based company said its key selling points are speed and the elimination of paperwork.

Merchants "can use it to qualify their larger customers" discreetly, said Jim Ashborn of Benjamin Group Inc., which handles public relations for ICVerify.

"If you go into a supermarket and buy, say, $10 or $20 worth of groceries, then nobody's going to worry much about the transaction," he continued. "But when you're talking about big-ticket items, like a car or a roomful of furniture worth $20,000, the bank is going to want to check it out, but in a way that does not alienate the customer."

The ICVerify system can handle such a transaction in five to 10 seconds, he said.

The software is used to speed credit verification at more than 60 U.S. golf courses that have replaced traditional cash registers with point of sale PC-based computer systems. These handle everything from registering daily sales and cash flow for inventory to beverages, membership rolls, tournaments, and general ledger accounting.

Mr. Ashborn said that First National Bank of Omaha's merchant processing division currently uses ICVerify's system.

"Our ICVerify programs are in use by a majority of mail-order telephone catalog companies" in the United States, said Steve Elefant, the company's president and chief executive officer. The software can verify a credit card in 3.5 to 15 seconds at a base retail price of no more than $350 per installation, he said.

He added that it authenticates a credit card user's signature without paperwork or paper storage.

Participating golf courses include American Golf Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif.; Club Development Associates of Aberdeen, N.C.; LinksCorp of Northfield, Ill.; and GolfSouth Management Inc. of Greenville, S.C.

ICVerify's other deal involves Deer Valley Resort Co. in Park City, Utah. The resort takes a three-pronged approach to on-line credit card verification, one of which consists of a single DOS-based personal computer containing ICVerify's credit card verification software. The program, which was installed last fall, checks and processes reservations and payments.

In April, at Internet World '95, ICVerify Inc. demonstrated its credit authorization-draft capture, check acceptance, and debit/ATM card authorization software.

The company said that it requires only a single modem and telephone line in multi-user situations. It is aimed at small to medium-size businesses using personal computers and Unix systems, as well as large retail corporations.

ICVerify said it has installed about 25,000 software programs in the United States over the past three years.

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