Cybercash Inc., a pioneer of Internet payments and among the first round of financial Internet companies to go public, said it has licensed Internet payment software and services to Nortel Networks, SAP America Inc., and Sprint Corp.
The three new customers will use Cybercash's offerings to support the Internet stores of their merchant customers. Nancy Goldberg, executive vice president at Reston, Va.-based Cybercash, said the agreements demonstrate how her company can help banks develop relationships with Internet service providers such as Sprint and Nortel.
"Banks are becoming more aggressive in creating defined partnerships with ISPs," she said Thursday.
Cybercash, whose stock soared when the company went public in 1996, has struggled since. The company became a provider of digital wallets after its attempt to popularize digital currency failed to take off. It is now gaining traction as a processor of credit card payments originated on the Internet.
Cybercash said 20,000 merchants use its service to process credit and debit cards, smart cards, and other transactions generated on the Internet and in the physical world. On March 7, Cybercash said it processed eight million Internet transactions, three times what it had processed a year earlier.
Cybercash stock, which traded at more than $60 a share soon after its IPO four years ago, has not traded as high since, falling as low as $6.6875 on Sept. 29. It closed Friday at $7, down 39% for the week.
"They have continuously gone to the market - either through a private placement or shelf offering - to raise additional money," said Jeffrey Baker, an analyst at SunTrust Equitable Securities.
Cybercash is projected to lose $31.2 million in 2000 and more than $16 million in 2001, according to SunTrust. The company has never shown a profit and SunTrust has not projected when it expects to break even.
