Start-up bemoans banks' lack of support

A UK internet start-up claimed that its business plans were almost destroyed by the lack of support for e-commerce from the UK market.

Simwood Internet Services recently launched a service for sending and receiving email via mobile phones. But the company has had to outsource large parts of its operation to companies overseas.

Work on Simwood's eSMS service nearly stopped in February after the company could not get a credit card facility from a UK bank. The company eventually secured this facility from US company Multicards and is charging for its service in dollars.

'UK banks take a particularly dim view of start-ups, especially when the words internet and credit card are mentioned,' said Simon Woodhead, managing director of Simwood.

It was not just UK banks that have hindered Simwood. The UK's four mobile phone operators will not allow short messaging service (SMS) messages to be sent between each other's networks. As a result, Simwood uses Vodafone Australia as its main provider.

'Vodafone Australia is more cost effective and versatile than operators in the UK,' said Woodhead.

For a monthly fee of between #2 and #12, subscribers to the eSMS service can send and receive text email of unlimited character length. Messages cost about 15p to send and receive.

SMS is available on most GSM digital cellular networks. The eSMS service converts SMS messages sent from mobiles into email format and delivers them across the Net.

Subscribers are assigned a special email address. Email sent to this address is converted into SMS format and delivered to the user's mobile phone.

SMS is available on all four UK mobile networks and 52 other mobile networks across the world. Notable exceptions are the US, where SMS is unavailable, and France, where demand has so far been low.