R -- GSA Smartpay 2 Charge Card Services

The General Services Administration (GSA) Services Acquisition Center, GSA SmartPay? program, is requesting proposals for the future program, known as GSA SmartPay? 2 (?SP2?). GSA SmartPay? is the largest government charge card program in the world. Today, use of purchase, travel, fleet, and integrated charge cards under the program has grown into a $25 billion a year business encompassing 350 government agencies/organizations and in excess of 92 million transactions annually. As the agent for our customer agencies, we are looking to contract with firms that offer secure, innovative products that support government needs ? which can vary greatly in diversity and complexity from agency to agency ? at a reasonable price. GSA seeks to provide improvements from the existing contract in a number of areas, including: ? New products and services. New products and services as core requirements, separately priced items, and value added items, including: pre-paid cards, contactless cards, and cards in foreign currencies. The Government also desires offerors to propose alternatives to convenience check use; ? Enhanced customer service. 24/7 worldwide customer service has been expanded to include the option for agencies/organizations to receive foreign language customer support for cardholders using their cards overseas, as specified at the task order level; ? Security of systems and data. The SP2 solicitation contains increased security requirements regarding data management and handling, including new requirements that successful offerors comply with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards, house their data facilities in the United States, and restrict data access to personnel with the required level of security clearance. In addition, successful offerors will be required to comply with new program data and interface standards; ? Interchange rates. Lower interchange rates for government to government transactions are required, as well as reduced rates or other alternative approaches for ?large ticket? purchases; ? Enhanced data capture. Innovative solutions are sought from offerors to improve the quality of data (e.g., expanded collection of Level 3 data) to support the Government?s strategic sourcing initiatives, risk mitigation measures, management reports, and other program reporting objectives; ? Tax reclamation. Improvements in tax recovery are required to facilitate recovery of taxes paid by agencies/organizations on tax exempt government transactions; and ? Live test demonstrations. Offerors determined to be within the competitive range will be required to submit their Electronic Access Systems to GSA testing. The contract period for SP2 includes a transitional period and a transactional period. The transitional period begins on the date of award and ends November 29, 2008. The transactional period (when actual transactions can begin to be processed through systems belonging to/associated with successful offerors) begins as early as November 30, 2007, and has a four-year base period, with one four-year option period, and one three-year option period. Potential offerors should read the solicitation carefully. Questions or comments regarding the RFP can be submitted from the date of solicitation issuance until 4:30 pm Eastern Time, October 10, 2006. All comments/questions regarding this RFP must be received by this time, and shall include reasoning associated with any suggested changes/comments to the RFP. The Government will periodically post replies to these questions/comments on the FedBizOpps website (www.fedbizopps.gov). Please e-mail any comments or questions to: bertha.gelhaus@gsa.gov. Proposals submitted in response to this RFP via commercial express delivery should be sent to: Bertha L. Gelhaus, Contracting Officer GSA/FSS/FCXC 2200 Crystal Drive, Suite 706 Arlington, VA 22202 Proposals submitted via the U. S. Postal Service, are sent to the same address as above, except the zip code to be used is: 20406. Proposals are due no later than 4:30 pm Eastern Time, Tuesday, November 28, 2006. Thank you for your interest in the GSA SmartPay? 2 program.