The Yankee Group Sees Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) Market Ready for Take Off
EBPP: Is it hype or is there substance behind it?
BOSTON, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Earlier this year, the Yankee Group took at look at the EBPP market, from both the consumer and supply side perspective, and discovered a functioning technology is only just being implemented by the biller community, with consumers only showing minimal interest in using it (4.5% of PC-owning households in 1998). On the other side of the coin, the number of vendors offering EBPP solutions is growing at a substantial rate, offering site-licensed solutions, outsourced solutions, and many other niche possibilities to help billers offer recurring bills electronically.
After several months of rumors about either a collaboration or a merger between Yahoo! Inc. and CheckFree Corp., an announcement was finally made on September 8, with the two companies pushing Yahoo! BillPay! service, allowing consumers to pay recurring monthly bills at Yahoo!'s Web site, with CheckFree's Genesis platform acting as the electronic payment engine in the back field. Though CheckFree's competitor TransPoint went live with electronic bill presentment payment (EBPP) through MSN MoneyCentral earlier this quarter, CheckFree's higher number of existing relationships with billers and banks puts this deal on a larger scale, at least for now.
"Portal sites have the best experience with Internet user reach, frequency, and usage, and adding EBPP to Yahoo!'s extensive list of offerings already found on the site will significantly boost its suite of services," commented Paul Hughes, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group. "This deal is bringing EBPP in a new light, demonstrating that it is a reality, and should benefit the entire EBPP marketplace by generating a heightened level of interest and awareness."
Much of EBPP's limited usage was due to the consumers' lack of awareness and fear of online security, as described in the recent Yankee Group Consumer Market Convergence Report entitled, Yahoo!, CheckFree and BillPay!: EBPP Continues to Make Strides. Hughes also commented, "Much of the biller community was initially sitting back in a "wait-and-see" mode as to which bill payment model was going to emerge as the most successful, and which web site consumers preferred to use for bill payment. However, the wait-and-see approach can be hazardous, as forward looking companies look to capitalize on customer touch points and the transaction charge associated with an electronic bill payment."
Further consumer adoption data on EBPP will be available in the Yankee Group's 1999 Technologically Advanced Family (TAF) survey due for release in October. This survey highlights consumer interest in EBPP, and looks at the driving and delaying forces for adoption.
The TAF survey is the most comprehensive data on consumers' adoption of technologies and their behavior available today. For more information on EBPP and the TAF survey, or to schedule an interview, contact Paul Hughes at phughes@yankeegroup.com or 617/880-0208.
About the Yankee Group
The Yankee Group, a subsidiary of Primark Corporation (NYSE: PMK; PSE), is an internationally recognized leader in IT research and advisory services, focusing on strategic planning assistance, technology forecasting, and IT industry analysis. The company provides assessments and strategic advice on the Internet, communications, computing, and energy industries for a wide range of end-user and vendor businesses from numerous industries. The Yankee Group specializes in helping clients develop technology initiatives that are in synergy with their core business strategies. Established in Boston, Massachusetts in 1970 as the industry's first research and advisory services firm, the Yankee Group has built a solid reputation worldwide for its penetrating analysis of key information technology issues and the personalized one-to-one service provided by its analysts to all their clients. Additional information is available at www.yankeegroup.com.
Primark Corporation is a global information services organization headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Primark provides financial, economic, and market research information services to the financial, corporate, and government markets. Additional information is available at www.primark.com.
SOURCE Yankee Group
CO: Yankee Group; Primark Corporation
ST: Massachusetts
IN: FIN MLM TLS
SU:
09/20/1999 08:19 EDT prnewswire.com |
