EFed expanding into state, local market

EFed, a subsidiary of National Information Consortium Inc., recently signed a letter of intent with Bank of America Corp. to create a company designed to offer state and local governments a business-to-business procurement system.

EFed, based in Overland Park, Kan., has been involved in 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 suppliers' catalogs will be maintained in their online procurement system, and Bank of America will manage payment processing.