InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
November 30, 1998
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CheckFree's key strength is providing a one-stop-shop option for both presentment and payment. Other strengths include the comprehensiveness of its solutions and its strong relationships with financial institutions. Most financial institutions are comfortable with CheckFree. However, these relationships could become strained in the near future. Many banks are now interested in playing the role of consolidator, which would put them in direct competition with the likes of CheckFree.
CyberCash
CyberCash provides software and services for processing payments over the Web. CyberCash offers a suite of products for payment via methods including credit cards, electronic checks, and electronic cash (debit card). CyberCash's revenue model is based on charging billers a fixed fee for each transaction it processes. The relatively young company has already achieved impressive market penetration and mindshare.
Getting started with CyberCash is simple. The company offers the Merchant Connection Kit, which can be downloaded for free from CyberCash's Web site. The connection kit provides the software required to connect to the customer's site with the centralized CyberCash payment processing center. For organizations that want to quickly implement simple electronic payment capabilities, this approach is extremely attractive.
CyberCash makes the most sense for organizations that create and host their own EBPP applications (the biller-direct model). But if the consolidator model becomes the dominant approach, CyberCash's service will have limited appeal.
edocs
Edocs provides software designed to present bills and statements to the Web. The company was founded in 1997, and the management team has extensive experience in data stream composition and conversion tools, plus high-volume data stream archival and viewing technologies. In addition to software, the company has a professional services group for installation and customization, and it offers marketing and product branding services aimed at helping billers create effective electronic marketing campaigns.
Edocs' BillDirect product is a complete parsing and presentment engine that runs on Windows NT. Unlike some other vendors, edocs provides real software, as opposed to product plans or strategy announcements. We installed BillDirect in our lab and used it to build a sample EBPP application.
The BillDirect engine parses data streams, stores the locations of billing data and summary data in a relational database, and presents the bills to the Web. The payment side is handled through partnerships with CyberCash and CheckFree.
One of BillDirect's most impressive capabilities is the ease with which bill data extraction can be configured. It provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for defining the extraction and parsing schemas. BillDirect imports a data stream and strips away all of the graphical elements of the data, presenting the administrator or user with a textual view of the data. From there, the user can select the appropriate text and associate it with an extraction rule. This simple process allows organizations to quickly get basic EBPP up and running.
BillDirect's key strength is its completeness. Everything from parsing the data stream, to configuring the look and feel of the bill, to adding business rules for conditional inserts can be performed in an easy-to-use manner within edocs.
Overall, the BillDirect software makes the most sense for companies implementing the biller-direct model of EBPP, although the system can also be used by consolidators and service bureaus. But it's expensive, and may cost more than some smaller billers can justify. And it would be easier to build custom applications if BillDirect integrated with third-party Web application development tools.
International Billing Services
International Billing Services (IBS) is a service bureau--the company takes print data streams and produces finished bills. IBS is one of the largest first-class mailers in the United States, accounting for some 1.5% of all first-class mail.
IBS's EBPP outsourcing service, Electronic Billing, leverages the company's in-house technology to fully recompose and reengineer bills. Billers need only provide IBS their native data streams. IBS will take care of parsing the data stream, converting it to an electronic bill, and presenting the bill anywhere the customer wants the bill presented--which could include a biller-direct site or a consolidator's site.
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