London Bridge Software Holdings Plc, the rapidly expanding UK credit management software company, added yet another feather to its client cap yesterday with the announcement that the US Department of Justice plans to buy its debt recovery software, RMS. London Bridge, which sells large-scale credit risk management systems to banks and utilities firms worldwide, said it was in the final stages of talks with the US DOJ’s Office of Debt Management to supply it with the company’s Recovery Management System (RMS) software. London Bridge will supply the software as a subcontractor to CACI International Inc: an IT services provider to government agencies and commercial enterprises in the US. In a statement last week, CACI said it had signed a deal with the DOJ to provide systems and technology for its Automated Debt Collection Management (ADCM) program; set up to support the litigation the DOJ brings on behalf of agencies trying to collect debts owed to the US. The contract will initially last for 28 months followed by five, one year options. London Bridge’s RMS software will form the centerpiece of the software solution for the program, CACI said in its statement. A spokesman for London Bridge said the company was confident the final stages of the deal would be agreed (with CACI) within the next few weeks. Although he could not divulge its exact worth, the spokesman did say London Bridge stood to gain several million dollars over the life of the contract. This is a very significant deal for us, he added, not just because it’s with a huge customer like the DOJ, but because it gives us a foot in the door of the US government. A foot that will be music to the ears of the company’s chairman and managing director Gordon Crawford, whose self-professed aim is to expand his company’s business within the US and Far East markets. When Crawford acquired the RMS division of Checkfree Corp last August he immediately soaked up the company’s huge 100 plus user database. One problem is that the RMS software only deals with debts that have been classified as bad or written off. To really make it big, Crawford knows he’ll have to push his company’s leading Debt Manager product (software which chases debts before they get written off), used by all four UK high street clearing banks, to each RMS site as well.
