Bill from Piper Jaffray is wrong.
CKFR experimented with formatted email style bill presentment years ago, with those consumers who were early bill pay customers. It did not fly. It does fly when done over the web using HTML. The billers like it better because they get interactive advertising space.
Also, I think this bodes well for CKFR:
============================================================================
SUBJECT: INTEGRION GETS TWO NEW MEMBERS --MUST ENHANCE OFFERING, ANALYSTS
SAY
SOURCE: RETAIL DELIVERY SYSTEMS NEWS via First! by Individual, Inc.
DATE: October 10, 1997
INDEX: [4]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
RETAIL DELIVERY SYSTEMS NEWS via Individual Inc. -- Integrion of Atlanta,
recently added $8 million to its coffers and garnered support from two of
the nation's largest banks, but its future success still is questionable.
Citibank [CCI] of New York, and First Union [FTU] of Charlotte, N.C.,
became equity owners last month in the IBM [IBM]- and bank-owned outsourcer
via different paths. Ed Horowitz, Citibank's new executive vice president
of global advanced development, is making it a habit to invest in technology
ventures like Meca and The Mining Co. - and now Integrion.
I ntegrion Enters Competitive Race
However, Condon questions if the banks' investments in Integrion are
worthwhile even if the venture does represent up to 75 percent of U.S.
households.
Integrion spent the past year getting organized while others like Edify,
Intelidata and Security First delivered server applications and middleware.
Open Financial Exchange (OFX) is gaining acceptance, threatening Integrion's
proposed Gold standard. Lastly, MSFDC, the First Data [FDC]/Microsoft
[MSFT] bill presentment partnership, threatens to unseat CheckFree [CKFR]
and Visa in that market, Condon says.
Integrion should develop bill presentment with Lotus and CheckFree;
establish itself as a certificate authority; support Internet funds
transfers and develop online brokerage services, Condon says. (Cliff
Condon, Forrester, 617/497-7090; David Fortney, Integrion, 404/607-4025
integrion.net.)
Room For One More
Meanwhile, First Union, a $143 billion asset bank in Charlotte, N.C., is
protecting the product development position the bank had with Visa
Interactive before it was acquired by Integrion, according to Cliff Condon,
an analyst with Forrester Research [FORR] of Cambridge, Mass.
Integrion's founding documents allow for 20 primary owners. The original
17 invested $4 million each along with IBM. With the addition of Citibank
and First Union, those slots would seem to be filled. However, if the
acquisition of Barnett Banks by NationsBank is completed, one more slot
would be opened, says David Fortney, Integrion's manager of product
development. Non-owners can be Integrion customers, as are the 60 Visa
Interactive customers that recently were acquired with that company, Fortney
adds.
Integrion owners to date are: ABN AMRO North America; Bank One, Bank of
America, Barnett Bank, Citibank, Comerica, First Chicago NBD, First Union,
Fleet Financial, IBM, Key Corp., Mellon Bank, Michigan National Bank,
NationsBank, Norwest, PNC Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, US Bancorp, Visa USA,
Washington Mutual Inc.
In other news, Integrion partnered with Intuit [INTU] to link Quicken
software to Integrion's Interactive Financial Services platform.
Source: RDSN
[10-10-97 at 18:00 EDT, Copyright 1997, Phillips Publishing, Inc., File:
d1010501.8rd] |
