Exactly right Benny. If CKFR can go to billers and say I can deliver your bills to banks, and portals, and brokers and to Quicken and to Billserve, and to anywhere else your customers want them, then they may still retain an advantage over the banks which will be saying, I can deliver your bills to our common customers and to customers of a small subset of very large banks.
CKFR may also be able to leverage its payment capabilities with billers, explaining that having the roundtrip in the hands of a single enterprise will be far superior in terms of being able to handle YOUR customers, than it will be if you send your bills to a bank, but have payments being processed by various entities.
As far as capabilities go, it's going to take them a hell of a lot longer than they are saying, and then when they go to operate they're very likely to screw it up, just like Manny Hanny, Chemical, and Chase did in their previous attempts to handle bill-pay only. Not only that, they will fight like cats and dogs with each other about who gets to sign up which merchans billers, and if they don't be careful, they'll get their tit in a ringer about "market carving".
There are lots of "gotcha's" going to pop up and bite them in the ass, and when they come back to CKFR after fumbling the ball, the penalty is likely to be pretty severe.
Unfortunately, I think what happened at days end yesterday will continue this am. I think Pete et al better get a damned good statement prepared and distributed explaining what he sees as the situation. |
