Electronic Financial Services Caribbean Inc. (EFS), based in St.John's Antigua, acts as an international currency converter and a secure Internet transaction gateway to financial institutions for online merchants. Through its alignments with major banks, EFS performs conversion of world currencies, for transaction fees, into "e-cash" and then back to hard currencies. This service is provided to Internet merchants and other associated companies. EFS utilizes Starnet Communications International Inc's proprietary STAR-MX encoding and processing technologies which allow for complete security for financial transactions and for services such as Internet home shopping.