Benny, re:"Plus why would billers waste their time..."
Hi Benny,
First, let me say what a pleasure it is to have a a continuing discussion with you where we can differ in our opinions and we can each respond reasonably without it degrading into name calling, sarcasm and evasion. I don't know about you, but for me it is hard to engage people in a conversation with differing opinions and everyone remains level headed. So, thank you.
I agree with you that that billers already get bulk rates. It has yet to be proven if the savings would be marginal as opposed to substantial when moving to bulk and consolidated. I think this information could be obtained pretty easily... I will investigate.
In addition, I agree E-Bill would require zero-postage and is the most cost effective. I hesitate to include this factor in our discussions because bill presentment has not arrived, (save AT&T) we are not sure when it will and until then it does not matter.
Your comments on bulk mail to one location is missing some illuminating assumptions. For one, you mention there are over 3 million billers. However, what you don't mention is that probably 98% of the bills are sent by a very, very small portion of these billers. That is why CheckFree, at least I think, is such a good play, because they have the top billers, not necessarily all billers. And these billers, because they send out so many bills have large automated systems in place. Some even have their own post office.
Finally, let me address you comments on e-bill vs manual implementation. E-bill implementation is costly... a new system is introduced as well as a new customer base for this system. The manual system is already in place... it is transparent to the biller that you are having your bill paid by someone else... that is the beauty of the setup.
I am encouraged that you get an e-bill from AT&T... I wish e-bill was here. However, it is not and it is not around the corner. I wish it was, and I think it is not strictly technical hurdles that is holding it up, but politics and standards, especially in regards to business-to-business bill presentment. Because if a business can pay and read it's bill's electronically, there is no reason the systems cannot do the entire billing and payment transaction electronically with certain electronic rules. I would think that would be a nice cost savings for corporate america, and would be a partial realization of the old, old, yet the still very much kicking, promise of Electronic Data Interchange.
Just my early morning opinion.
Jon :) |
