USA: CIT To Finance Transactions On Textrade.com Textile Marketplace

CIT Commercial Services has announced an alliance with Textrade.com - one of the world's first and largest Internet-based international textile trading, communications and information marketplaces - to provide credit protection and financing services to textile buyers and sellers via the Internet. CIT will issue lines of credit to textile buyers to purchase goods on the Textrade.com site and, at the same time, provide credit protection to the sellers. Under this financing program, CIT will assume the buyer's financial ability to pay its debts on all approved orders through Textrade.com. "This arrangement allows CIT to utilize the Internet to facilitate business-to-business e-commerce transactions and expand our support of the textiles industry as it develops new distribution channels," said John F. Daly, president of CIT Commercial Services. "Our strategy is to provide financing services via the key vertical and horizontal Internet marketplaces in the industries we serve and Textrade.com is an important player in textiles e-commerce." "Our alliance with CIT gives Textrade.com member companies even more power to expand their sourcing and selling relationships and grow their business around the world with confidence and convenience, " said Rob Cox, CEO of Textrade.com. The Textrade.com Web site, an overhauled and expanded successor to the company's Global Textile Network (GTN) Internet service which launched in 1996, is expected to debut in August 2000.