EFed Expands into State, Local Market

EFed, a subsidiary of National Information Consortium Inc., has signed a

letter of intent with Bank of America Corp. to create a company to offer

state and local governments a business-to-business procurement system.

EFed, based in Overland Park, Kan., traditionally has focused on the

federal market, but is bidding on a number of state and local contracts

with Bank of America in an effort to attract state and local customers,

said company spokesman David Fishman.

"We are getting larger, and we'll probably add services for our existing

customers to provide more things for them," Fishman said.

The new service will offer state and local customers the opportunity

to place orders online via preferred suppliers, request a quote from businesses

for services, process transactions, initiate payments and reconcile accounts.

Customers will decide which catalogs will be maintained in their online

procurement system, and Bank of America will manage payment processing.