BillingZone and billserv.com Form B2B/B2C Alliance: billserv.com to Offer
Business-to-Business Electronic Billing and Payment Service to Customers
PITTSBURGH and SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- BillingZone, LLC and
billserv.com (Nasdaq: BLLS) today announced that they have entered into a
strategic alliance to provide billserv.com's customers with a turnkey
business-to-business electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) service.
This agreement gives BillingZone access to a critical mass of billers and
signals the entry of billserv.com into the fast growing business-to-business
EBPP market. Forrester Research projects that EBPP will grow from $900 million
in 1999 to $73.2 billion by 2003, the bulk of which will be business-to-
business transactions.
"This alliance enables billserv.com to provide its customers with a world-
class B2B EBPP service," said Michael Long, chief executive officer of
billserv.com. "Facing increased demand from our customers for an integrated
business-to-consumer and business-to-business EBPP solution, we made a
strategic decision to form an alliance with BillingZone, whom we consider the
leading business-to-business EBPP service provider. Through our business
relationship with BillingZone, we can quickly bring our billers a best-in-
class solution designed to meet the needs of their payers."
"We are excited about our alliance with billserv.com, a pioneer and clear
leader in the B2C Biller Service Provider marketplace," said Eric Smith, chief
executive officer of BillingZone. "It demonstrates that our payer-focused
EBPP service opens up strategic new business opportunities for other players
in the EBPP market, and that it can be leveraged to meet the business-to-
business needs of those businesses who bill both consumers and commercial
customers. Furthermore, billserv.com brings a mass of billers to
BillingZone's existing payer community."
"This is a first-of-its-kind EBPP alliance with BillingZone and
billserv.com, significant players in the B2B and B2C markets respectively,
joining forces in what promises to be a powerful combination," says Jeetu
Patel, Vice President of Research and CTO of Doculabs, Inc., an independent
industry analyst firm. "While a combination of this type will ease the buying
decisions of billers in the EBPP marketplace, evidence also shows that
business customers will move toward a full-service online solution that allows
them to pay all their bills at one site. This alliance ensures that both
companies are positioned to take full advantage of this shift."
About billserv.com
billserv.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLLS) is the leading electronic bill
presentment and payment service bureau that provides billers with a turnkey
outsourcing solution for presenting bills to consumers for payment on the
Internet. billserv.com serves an intermediary role between billers and bill
aggregators by consolidating customer billing information from multiple
billers, and then securely delivering it to aggregators. billserv.com
currently has agreements with every major billing aggregator such as
CheckFree, TransPoint, Bank of America, Spectrum,
MasterCard RPPS, PAYTRU$T, and CyberBills, giving companies and customers
a wide variety of Web sites to deliver, view, pay and manage bills
billserv.com has five product offerings: eServ(SM), Internet billing
clearinghouse services for EBPP; ePublishing(SM), electronic publishing
services for online statement delivery; eCare(SM), an interactive customer
care center operation, eConsulting(SM), professional consulting services for
billing organizations offering in- house bill presentment, and ASP Gateway
Services, a service that provides billers who already have an in-house EBPP
system with limited distribution points, a solution to deliver e-bills to
virtually any distribution point across the Internet. billserv.com also owns
bills.com, the first Internet portal dedicated to EBPP, where consumers can
pay all their bills electronically. Additionally, billserv.com is CheckFree's
first Certified Premier Partner. Currently, billserv.com has 26 biller
relationships contracted, representing 42 billers. billserv.com's customer
base totals more than 1.5 billion paper bills annually, which equates to 7.5
% of all paper bills produced in the U.S. each year. Of the 42 billers, 20
are in a production environment with the remaining 22 in various stages of
implementation. For additional information, visit www.billserv.com or call
(210) 402-5000.
About BillingZone, LLC
BillingZone, LLC offers a business-to-business electronic bill and
presentment service that provides businesses a consolidated model for
presenting and paying invoices on the Internet. Its flagship site,
BillingZone.com(TM) is expressly designed to meet the needs of corporate
billers and payers and provides to payers the convenience of paying multiple
bills at one site. BillingZone.com streamlines the complexity of invoicing
and payment processes, helps companies realize significant cost savings by
eliminating paper and manual processes and speeds up the communication between
companies and their customers. BillingZone, LLC is backed by two industry
leaders, PNC Bank , a member of the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc.
(NYSE: PNC) and Perot Systems Corporation (NYSE: PER).
Please contact BillingZone, LLC at (412) 705-3000 or via e-mail at
info@billingzone.com. Additional information is available on the company's
web site at www.billingzone.com.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act with respect to
BillingZone's anticipated business, including statements regarding the
expected development and benefits of products. Forward-looking statements are
typically identified by words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate,"
"intend," "estimate," "position," "potential" and "continue," by future or
conditional verbs such as "will," "would," "should," "could" and "may," or by
similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous
assumptions, risks and uncertainties, all of which change over time, and
BillingZone, The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. and Perot Systems
Corporation assume no duty to update forward-looking statements.
The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ
materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements:
BillingZone's ability to continue the development, introduction, and
implementation of its electronic bill presentation and payment service as
planned; the degree to which billers and payers accept electronic bill
presentment and paying in general and BillingZone's service in particular;
BillingZone's ability to attract and to maintain a critical mass of billers
using its service; the loss of key personnel; changes in the competitive
market in which the service will operate; the impact, extent, timing, and
cost of technological changes; risks associated with the commercial use of
the Internet generally; undetected software bugs; possible product liability
claims; possible inability to protect proprietary technology; and possible
infringement claims. BillingZone is a start-up business and, as such, has
risks associated with the development of a new market, product development,
and the recruiting and retention of employees.
Additional factors that can affect forward-looking statements are
identified in the respective SEC Reports of The PNC Financial Services Group,
Inc. and Perot Systems Corporation, which reports are accessible on the SEC's
web site and on the companies' respective web sites.
SOURCE BillingZone, LLC and billserv.com
-0- 09/12/2000
/CONTACT: Kris Moorman for BillingZone, 207-780-8254,
kmoorman@go-upstream.com or Jack Roney of billserv.com, 210-402-5160,
jack.roney@billserv.com or Investor Inquiries: 888-559-4184/
/Web site: billserv.com
/Web site: billingzone.com
(BLLS)
CO: BillingZone, LLC; billserv.com
ST: Pennsylvania, Texas
IN: FIN MLM
SU: JVN
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