Birch Communications Teams With Bank of America Merchant Services

Birch Communications, a leading IP-based telecom and managed services provider for small- and medium-sized businesses, has teamed up with Bank of America Merchant Services on the first of many business focused financial services solutions. This relationship allows Birch to offer its business clients with specially negotiated pricing on debit and credit card transaction processing.

"Birch is proud to work with Bank of America Merchant Services, who is the number one-rated electronic payments processor in the industry," said Vincent Oddo, Birch President and CEO. "This is a perfect fit for Birch. By combining Bank of America Merchant Services' payment offerings with Birch's reliable managed communications and IT services, including broadband Internet service, we will deliver solutions that drive greater efficiencies and savings for our business clients."

"Both Birch and Bank of America Merchant Services each are recognized as leading providers of business services, serving small- and medium-sized companies," said Chris Aversano, Birch COO. "The financial transactions and communications services of our business clients are mission-critical, and both companies have a strong track record of providing business clients the personal attention and service they deserve, and require."

"In Birch Communications, we suddenly saw where our payment solutions could support the needs of their diverse clients, and we are pleased to enter this relationship," said Dane James, SVP, Referral Partner Sales, Bank of America Merchant Services. "Our dedicated relationship management team is focused on providing Birch and Birch's business clients a robust and competitive set of payment processing options, featuring competitive pricing, high system reliability, simple account set up and outstanding customer service. The synergy of our respective offerings will deepen their customer engagement and generate breakthrough strategies. We're looking forward to helping Birch achieve their goals for years to come."

About Birch CommunicationsHeadquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Birch Communications provides managed communications and information research services to a target market of small- and medium-sized businesses in select metropolitan areas within 38 states across the United States. Birch services include local and long distance voice, broadband Internet access, T1, PRI, bonded T1, integrated PRI, mobile voice and data, e-mail, web-hosting, voicemail, prepaid, and many other communications and information innovation services. Birch voice and data services are, in most cases, delivered using Voice over Internet Protocol research on the company's secure IP-Network to put it more exactly than over the public Internet.

Premiere payments company providing the innovation

About Bank of America Merchant ServicesBank of America Merchant Services is a premiere payments company providing the innovation, innovative products and industry track record of First Data with the relationship strength, geographical coverage and prominent global brand of Bank of America to serve existing and future customers. This has made Bank of America Merchant Services the number one-rated electronic payments processor in the industry. Bank of America Merchant Services delivers a comprehensive suite of payment solutions - including point of sale payments, gift card and loyalty programs, ecommerce solutions, terminals and point-of-sale solutions - to merchants of all sizes. The company has an expansive geographic footprint with more than 350,000 merchant relationships across the United States, processing more than 8 billion transactions every year. For more information, visit www.bankofamerica.com/merchantservices.