Having to cut jobs was not something Promisant's CEO relished but Juan Prado is pragmatic when he speaks of the decision to "shrink" the company's work force in April, 2001.

Mr. Prado, who is also the founder of Promisant which was set up in March 1999 and is a privately-held company, said: "A little more than a year ago, the Internet bubble had officially burst. And we had to re-evaluate our go-to-market strategy."

Mr. Prado said that although Promisant is now "beginning to see the fruit of our labours, the process was painful; both personally and professionally," he said of letting go "good people".

Mr. Prado said: "We had spent significant time pulling together a sales force to sell to target markets. But with the changes in the markets we decided we had to adopt a channel strategy as a means of going to market. We had to act - and we made the decision and acted in a period less than two weeks or we would no longer be around."

He added that world-wide, a large number of Internet and tech start-ups that did not trim their staffing levels and costs, went bust.

But a year on, Mr. Prado said: "The good news is that we are on track and the pay-off is now beginning to appear," he said. Looking at the company's strategic alliances - it recently announced, for example, that a multinational manufacturer of silicone-based products, Dow Corning, had signed on as a client of its multi-currency payment processing capability in alliance with Express Merchant Processing Solutions (EMPS) - Mr. Prado said: "We are in negotiations on several channel partnerships."

Providing electronic payment ability through "channel partners" - instead of going directly to merchants in the market - allows the company to provide service to a large number of clients. Mr. Prado said this also eliminated the need to have a direct sales force.

He added that Promisant should have ten channel partnerships in place by the end of 2002. It currently has completed negotiations on five partnerships, including another recently announced strategic alliance with accounting giant Ernst & Young.

But channel negotiations take time, he said and likened the process to "elephant hunting as there are significantly fewer..." In terms of the company's set up, he said all of Promisant's technology systems were in Bermuda - and transactions from merchants around the world were brought back to Bermuda for processing, he said.

He stressed that Promisant was a Bermuda-based company - indeed Mr. Prado was brought up on the Island, and is married to a Bermudian - and he does not see that changing. He added that the business climate is right based on a good working relationship with the Ministry of Telecommunications and the Bank of NT Butterfield.

In addition to its Bermuda headquarters, the firm also has offices in Atlanta and London and is looking at opening an office in the near future in Frankfurt, as Promisant has a relationship with Dresdner Bank, Mr. Prado said.

In future, Mr. Prado said Promisant will be taking their platform, which is a global product, in to European markets and is also working on further growth in the US and Canada. And he predicted that by next year the company would move in to Asia.

To highlight the global elements in Promisant's platform, Mr. Prado, as way of an example, said by outsourcing to Promisant, international manufacturer Dow Corning - the company has five global subsidiaries - eliminated the need to establish individual processing agreements for each arm of its business.

In addition, Promisant's technology can handle different currencies and different type of transactions - including various credit or bank card types - through its global platform.

Mr. Prado said in order to be up and running 24/7 for its clients, the company has spent millions on its Bermuda plant.

He said the end result was a sophisticated and redundant - which is to say a system with back-up systems to keep service up and running if one system goes down - set up. The system also monitors the flow of electricity in case of a large power surge. In the long-term Mr. Prado said in the next three to four year he sees Promisant moving in to the top ten markets in the world as part of Promisant's "careful roll-out plan," he said.