October 20, 2010 - Mumbai, India.

Avenues, South Asia's largest integrated ecommerce company and Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), a premier Indian bank are pleased to announce that they have signed an agreement for online shopping for IOB customers.

Shopping online is gaining popularity amongst the masses. Not only because of the convenience (anywhere, anytime) but also because of the diversity of products and services online and the variety of tools to compare features and price of said product. A similar growth in the number of online booking is also being seen in the travel (hotels, trains, airlines) and event industries. This growing popularity of using the internet to search, purchase and pay for all types of products and services gave rise to Indian Overseas Bank's desire to offer their customers online shopping convenience. IOB's subsequent signing of a direct debit agreement with Avenues aims at breaking the online shopping barriers for its account holders.

Avenues is the parent company of CCAvenue, India's largest neutral online payment gateway; ResAvenue, India's complete reservation engine for the Hospitality Industry; EventAvenue, the leading online registration and payment gateway solution and HotelsAvenue-the world's largest resource for travel professionals. Thousands of merchants, hoteliers, event organizers, administrators, travel agents and others use these solutions to transact online. The agreement between IOB and Avenues will facilitate shopping/booking ease for IOB's customers. Henceforth, IOB's customers will be able to purchase and pay for all types of products and services easily online, directly through their net banking accounts and with their debit cards.

Avenues' merchants, hoteliers, event organizers, administrators and travel agents will also benefit as these direct debit and debit card payment additions will open up their businesses to a new set of customers located across the Indian Sub-continent. Any IOB customer will be able to visit their web store, hotel, event, institute or travel website and purchase/book and pay for their product or service easily. Mr. Vishwas Patel, CEO, Avenues, "We aim at developing a payment network so extensive that our merchants, hoteliers, event organizers, administrators and travel agents will be able to accept payments from all customers, whether they live in a large metro like Mumbai or a tiny unknown of village in Bihar. This latest addition puts us, one-step closer to our end-goal. We are pleased that Indian Overseas Bank is now a part of our direct debit engine."

About Avenues
Incorporated in the year 2001, Avenues is a zero-debt company that has been profitable from its inception. Avenues is headquartered in Mumbai, India and has subsidiary companies and offices in USA, Singapore and China. Avenues has developed several innovative, cutting-edge ASP hosted solutions that are used by thousands of eMerchants globally. Beginning as a single product company that catered to the local market, Avenues has become a multi-product company that operates on a global scale. The Avenues support and development center is based in Mumbai, India. The total strength of the Avenues team is currently 125 persons spanning across all offices. Avenues has three Business Units namely - Avenues Commercial Services, Avenues Travel Industry Services and Avenues Community Related Services. For more information, log onto: www.Avenues.info.

Indian Overseas Bank
Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), founded on February 10th 1937 is a pioneer in Banking, Insurance and Industry with a specialization in forex business and overseas banking. It provides specialized banking services to its retail customers that include Any Branch Banking, ATM Banking, Speedy Transfer and Realization Service and Bond Schemes.

IOB's India presence is a well-networked branch system spanning the country with 1847 branches and 51 extension counters in major cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Noida, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Coimbatore, Pune, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Kolkata. It also has over 700 ATMs across India. Indian Overseas Bank's also has a presence in key trade centers of the world like Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong and Bangkok.