Corporate Headquarters
160 North Craig Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Toll Free: 888-771-9606
Fax: 412-681-7099
info@innovateec.com
Directions


Regional Offices:
Columbus, OH
Raleigh, NC



Innovate News

Site Map

News Release – Innovate E-Commerce Inc. Provides Electronic Payment Gateway to State Government of North Carolina

PITTSBURGH, PA – Innovate E-Commerce Inc., business-to-business e-commerce consultants who specialize in the most demanding enterprise-wide solutions, has implemented an enterprise-wide electronic payment gateway for the state government of North Carolina. Innovate's PAY-CENTRAL™ Electronic Payment Gateway, renamed "Common Payment Service," or CPS, by the state, supports credit-card and debit-card transactions between the state, its citizens and its business partners. CPS will be employed statewide by state agencies as part of North Carolina's enterprise-based e-government initiatives that improve information and services to citizens through shared technology architectures among government agencies. North Carolina is recognized as a national leader in implementation of e-government.

The first application of the Common Payment Service is the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Department of Motor Vehicle's (DMV) vehicle registration renewal process. Citizens can now renew their vehicle registrations on-line, over the Internet, 24x7, from anywhere at anytime at www.dmv.dot.state.nc.us/VehicleRegistration. Customers using the service are also able to pay for renewal services on-line, in real-time, using their credit or debit cards, thanks to Innovate's electronic payment gateway technology. The system provides authorization, reversal, void, capture, settlement and return of transactions.

"The CPS system has reliably handled 300,000 transactions since going into production in September," said Don Waugh, North Carolina Assistant State Controller. "We've experienced no downtime despite 200% higher load than expected. This system is key to our citizens' ability to enter the virtual halls of government from their homes and businesses, and take care of their government-related transactions with unprecedented speed, accuracy and convenience."

"Offering state services on-line such as vehicle registration renewal is an ideal example of how Internet technology can help streamline everyday business transactions," said Karen Puchalsky, president of Innovate E-Commerce Inc. " We're proud to be a part of this state-wide initiative, which ultimately improves the quality of life for North Carolina citizens."

The state plans to use the Common Payment Service for at least 15 other applications including a lobbyist registration system, tuition and registration systems for state-affiliated colleges and universities, a vessel registration renewal system and a permit issuance system for the Department of Agriculture. Because CPS will be shared as the payment middleware across statewide agencies, the state will be able to negotiate significantly discounted credit-card processing rates based on aggregate volume, projected to be 1.1 million in the first year.

Innovate PAY-CENTRAL™, the architecture behind CPS, can be deployed on more than 40 different application servers, 30 different databases, and 15 different operating systems and can be called by 250 different browser-OS combinations on the client side. It supports multiple back-end processors (e.g. FDC, Paymentech™, Vital, etc.) and portal solutions. Innovate PAY-CENTRAL can be used with many different interfaces including Mainframe, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), and others. It supports applications written in multiple different languages on any operating system and can be migrated to a higher-end device within days. Other features include fully redundant architecture and secure Internet transactions.

"With Innovate PAY-CENTRAL™ we can accommodate virtually any kind of IT environment," explains Karen Puchalsky, president of Innovate E-Commerce.

"Plus the system can be hosted by Innovate, by a customer's outsourcing partner, or by the customer's own operation, providing a high degree of flexibility."

The state of North Carolina's system is being hosted by Information Technology Services and is officially owned by the Office of the State Controller of North Carolina.

Innovate E-Commerce Inc. is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., with regional offices in Boston, Columbus, Raleigh and San Francisco. Founded in 1997 by e-commerce pioneers William Claire, CEO, and Karen Puchalsky, President, the firm has experienced dramatic growth by virtue of its ability to tackle the most challenging, enterprise-wide e-commerce initiatives.

The company offers planning, implementation and management expertise in customer relationship management, supply chain management, knowledge management, business process optimization, and EDI, XML, Internet and LDAP technologies. Innovate also maintains an ASP (Application Service Provider) environment that processes millions of business documents annually. In addition, the company offers a state-of-the-art end-to-end audit and control tracking system.

For more information contact Amber Westwood at 412-681-7090 or at awestwood@innovateec.com.