InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
November 22, 1999
 Printer ready |
Electronic Billing Made Simpler
continued...page 2 of 3
| Related links: |
|
|
Billserv.com is an E-billing service bureau founded in 1998. The company's focus is providing small and midsize billers with a turnkey solution for presenting bills for payment on the Internet. Billserv. com markets four services: eServ (electronic bill presentment and payment outsourcing and consolidation services), ePublishing (bill publishing), eCare (customer service), and eConsulting (professional consulting services).
With its eServ offering, Billserv.com manages data conversion and distribution of bills to consolidators, as well as payment processing of remittances. One of Billserv.com's major differentiators is its focus on customer service. The company says it plans to build a Customer Interaction Center that will provide customer service related to any billing process. In addition, Billserv.com is building a data center that will let it act as a host for billers' electronic bill presentment and payment sites.
Billserv.com has a limited customer base, although it has landed some noteworthy accounts, including the Student Loan Marketing Association. Billserv.com has a good strategy as a pure billing service provider, and the outlook is strong if the company can show staying power during its ramp-up period of building the infrastructure needed to support its strategy.
Princeton eCom
Princeton eCom (formerly Princeton Telecom) has been offering financial-services solutions for more than 15 years. Through its Electronic Payment Solution, Princeton eCom links directly with billers' back-end accounts-receivable systems, as well as with about 270 pay-anyone customers (banks). In addition, Electronic Payment Solution includes an electronic lockbox, providing billers with a one-stop shop for both E-billing and lockbox processing. Princeton eCom can distribute a biller's data to any consolidator or consumer-service provider of the biller's choice, including Intuit Inc. and TransPoint.
Princeton eCom's revenue model is also attractive: Billers pay based on the number of payment transactions conducted, plus an up-front fee for implementation performed by Princeton eCom's professional-services staff. Princeton eCom also provides a tier-two call center for customers, offloading basic customer support tasks.
Overall, Princeton eCom provides a good assortment of services in the E-billing market for an attractive entry price, which will be a compelling package for many billers. However, the system doesn't address business-to-business requirements, and it lacks strong one-to-one marketing and personalization capabilities. Such areas must be addressed if Princeton eCom is to extend its value proposition to a broader base of billers.
Consolidators act as aggregators of bills from multiple billers. The idea is to give a customer just one site to visit, with a single logon, to view and pay all bills. Consolidators charge billers a fee for bill presentment and payment fulfillment of the bill, typically in the form of a transaction fee or "click charge." Some consolidators will also provide hosting services for billers, just as a billing service provider would.
Two of the biggest players in the electronic bill presentment and payment market are consolidators CheckFree and TransPoint. CheckFree is an established company, and its home-banking and transaction-processing services are widely used in major financial institutions. TransPoint is a joint venture of Microsoft and First Data Corp. The company became TransPoint when Citibank took an undisclosed equity stake in the venture. Another consolidator, Spectrum (formerly The Exchange), is an alliance of Wells Fargo, First Union, and Chase Manhattan that's scheduled to begin operation by year's end; no detailed information on its strategy or offering was available.
CheckFree
CheckFree is the oldest and largest consolidator, with a number of signed billers and a large distribution base, including financial institutions, brokerage firms, personal financial-management sites, and portals. Though CheckFree is a consolidator, it's also a service provider that offers complementary services (not competition) to financial institutions. CheckFree's distribution channel has been extended through recent agreements with WingspanBank.com and Yahoo.
CheckFree's core value to billers is providing the infrastructure to reach the customer. It has developed a high-end ECenter to handle the massive processing volumes and is investing heavily in customer-service centers. CheckFree also offers customers a pay-anyone service in which users can pay any biller through CheckFree--whether or not the biller is presenting its bills through CheckFree. This gives CheckFree an advantage over TransPoint.
Among CheckFree's other strengths are a one-stop-shop option for presentment and payment, as well as its strong relationships with financial institutions. CheckFree has a strong strategy and ambitious growth plans, and its vision and track record bode well for its chances of success.
continued...page 3
return to page 1
Back to Labs
Send Us Your Feedback
Top of the Page
Featured Microsite
