NatWest opens cyberspace shopping mall 17 June
NatWest Bank has opened its own Internet shopping mall, known as Buckingham Gate. Unlike the Barclays Bank Barclaysquare project, NatWest claims it is aimed at the global "cybertourist" markets of the US, Japan, and the UK.

The site was opened officially last week and, Newsbytes notes, has a good array of high-end stores on its virtual storefront, including Austin Reed and Churches Shoes in the men's and women's wear section, as well as the Victoria and Albert, Science, and Natural History museums. There is also a sports and entertainment section, detailing events such as Wimbledon, the Grand Prix, Henley Regatta, and the London Proms.

The Web site was created using Netscape's Merchant System by ICL, allowing users to "drop" items of interest into their virtual shopping basket and decide at the checkout whether to proceed with the order, charging the bill to a credit or debit card. NatWest claims that the transaction process is "straightforward and secure."

One very useful feature is the ability of the site to accept payment in most of the world's currencies. This means, NatWest claims, that a customer in, say, the US, can see an on-screen price in dollars, and that amount is what will appear on their statement.

This is made possible, Newsbytes notes, by NatWest's multi-currency payment system, with charges made in the user's home country, so avoiding the hidden commissions of credit and debit cards on "foreign" transactions.

Patrick Boyland, managing director of NatWest UK card services, claims that the site gives access to new international export markets to UK and foreign retailers. For a low-cost entry, he notes, retail stores can have their goods displayed to an international audience.

"With about 40 million Internet users worldwide, the opportunity for a service which includes everything `Best of British' is tremendous," he said. He added that offering users the opportunity to pay for goods and services in their local currency is a unique service over the Internet."

On a technical level, the NatWest system operates on three component server systems: the merchant server, the transaction server and the staging server. The merchant server is the front end that the user sees, with an underlying Oracle database with all product data. The transaction server, meanwhile, is hidden by a firewall and handles the actual order and payment transactions, while the staging server enables the site's contents for the shops, as well as general data on pastimes and events, to be fed to the merchant server.

(Steve Gold/19960613/Press Contact: Tony Frost, NatWest PR Manager, NatWest UK, +44-171-920-5285; Graham Goulden, +44-181-788-7272, Internet e-mail g.goulden@lon1102.wins.icl.co.uk


From the NEWSBYTES news service, 17 June