London, 22 February, 2010: Voice Commerce Group today announced that it has appointed Mills & Reeve, the full service national law firm, to represent its subsidiary Cashflows® in achieving its regulatory and operational objective. The Cashflows® brand name was announced in December 2009 and reflects the Group’s expansion from the provision of payments processing to meeting the broader financial requirements of its growing business customer base.

The Cashflows® Financial Services are designed to offer a range of solutions to businesses, initially in the UK. Following Voice Commerce Group securing its status as a Payments Institution under the Payments Services Directive in November 2009, Cashflows® will provide complete protection for customers’ funds providing for greater security. This approach gives Voice Commerce Group the opportunity to differentiate itself from other payment services providers and will also give business customers a clearer view of what is being done with their money and where it is at any given moment.

In addition to appointing Mills & Reeve, Voice Commerce Group have also recruited Liz Heade, a compliance lawyer who has previously worked for BGL Group Limited and RBS, to oversee the process and ensure all banking regulations are met. Heade will work alongside Clive Bramley who joined the Group as Legal Counsel from RBS last year.

Nick Ogden, CEO of Voice Commerce Group, said: “Following the melt down of the financial system we believe that there is a growing demand for banks to take a new stance which offers greater transparency and stability, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the business sector where people are demanding a back to basics approach which allows them to plan their business activities with a degree of certainty and continuity. The next step towards the launch of Cashflows® will be to complete further regulatory measures with the UK FSA that we now believe are required, and to ensure that our account infrastructures become fully interoperable within the global banking systems. The Voice Commerce Group was originally founded to provide business customers with sophisticated technology to secure payment transactions. As a Payments Institution we have been exploring in detail with the EU and UK regulators what is required to offer additonal financial services and we are confident that we can extend our services to meet business customers’ wider financial requirements under our Cashflows® banner. As an EU regulated payments processor we already hold customer funds, and are required to meet capital adequacy rules, so it is natural to extend this and provide our business customers with the additional financial services that they require.”

Ian Benson of Mills and Reeve, added: “The opportunity to work with the Voice Commerce Group and specifically the Cashflows® subsidiary is an exciting one. By responding to customers’ changing requirements in the business financial space, which has received a lot of attention of late, new entrants such as Cashflows® can add a fresh layer of competition to the market which will not only benefit their business customers on an individual basis but also the market as a whole.”

About Voice Commerce Group

Many of the innovations and standards used in Internet and electronic payments since the emergence of the commercial Internet in 1994 were developed by the team at Voice Commerce Group, including the creation of the Internet Payments Guarantee Solution to protect businesses and cardholders from fraud. 

Voice Commerce is authorised by the UK Financial Services Authority under the European Commission Payment Service Directive, and regulated in the provision of e-money services, and maintain appropriate financial capital adequacy. Voice Commerce are Principal Members, or, have contractual service relationships with all the principal Card Schemes: VISA, MASTERCARD and American Express, and our operational services are delivered to the PCI DSS Level 1 standard.

Either directly, or through an extensive range of relationships, Voice Commerce Group financial services and innovative payment solutions are available globally, except those countries proscribed by H M Treasury and the US Office of Foreign Assets Control.

For further information please visit www.voice-commerce-group.com