CheckFree and Carolina Power & Light Sign Agreement for Electronic Billing and Payment
Customers Will be Able to Receive and Pay Multiple Bills
With the Touch of a Button
ATLANTA, Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- CheckFree (Nasdaq: CKFR) and Carolina
Power & Light (NYSE: CPL) today announced an agreement to make Internet-based
electronic billing and payment services available to CP&L's 1.2 million
electricity and energy services customers in the Carolinas.
The Internet-based based billing and payment service, scheduled to be
launched later this year, is part of a variety of online customer services
being initiated by CP&L that will allow its customers to do business via
personal computer if they choose.
CP&L customers will be able to receive and pay their electric bills by
logging onto the Internet and visiting the company's corporate Web site,
cplc.com , or various financial services Web sites offering the
CheckFree E-Bill(SM) service. Customers who sign up for this service will see
full-color electric bills -- complete with graphic bill representations, logos
and billing details.
Customers who choose not to sign up for the service will continue
receiving their bills via regular mail. There will be no extra charge for
customers using either option.
"CP&L is committed to using the most advanced technology available to
provide the best customer service," said Tucker Mann, director of CP&L's
Customer Service Center. "CheckFree is helping us provide an additional
convenience to our customers who like to do business on the Internet, by
allowing them to pay their bills with the click of a computer mouse."
"Through Internet billing, CP&L is effectively expanding the range of its
consumer services and spearheading consumer adoption of electronic billing
services," said Lynn Busing, CheckFree's executive vice president of Account
Management.
CP&L has also enhanced the Customer Support section of its Web site to
allow customers to access detailed information about their account and
electricity usage. That information includes billing and payment history,
month-by-month electricity usage and useful weather statistics. Customers can
see usage statistics in both numeric and graph form and instantaneously
compare usage and costs on a month-by-month and year-by-year basis. Customers
can link quickly to answers to frequently asked questions about billing,
payment and service.
"We are taking full advantage of Internet technology to allow customers to
do business with us during the times that are most convenient for them," Mann
said. "At the same time, we will continue to set the industry standard for
service, by providing these services to our customers who have access to PCs
and the Internet."
The billing and payment service will be available through CP&L's Web site,
online banks and other financial service sites offering CheckFree's E-Bill
service. Current sites offering this service include:
* Bank One at bankone.com ;
* Charles Schwab at mybills.com ;
* First Union at mybills.com ;
* Intuit's Quicken 98/99 software ;
* Morgan Stanley Dean Witter at dwdean.com ;
* Navy Federal Credit Union at
mybills.com ;
* Prudential Securities at mybills.com ; and
* CheckFree E-Bill Direct at mybills.com .
[Please note that an "s" is required after the "http" on several of the
Web sites in order to access the service. This indicates that the site is
secured.]
Since launching the nation's first fully integrated, market-proven
electronic billing and payment solution in 1997, CheckFree has signed multi-
year contracts with more than 60 of the nation's larger billers. Among them
are the following: American Electric Power, Ameren (Union Electric), AT&T,
Avista Utilities, BellSouth, Chase Mortgage, Columbia Gas of Ohio, Consumers'
Energy, Countrywide Home Loans Inc., Cox Communications, CUNA Mutual Group,
Florida Power & Light, GPU Energy, GTE, Hawaiian Electric Company, HomeSide
Lending, Illinois Power, International Billing Services (IBS), MCI WorldCom,
Nevada Power, Northeast Utilities, NICOR Gas, Portland General Electric,
Public Service Company of New Mexico, Small Business Administration, Southern
California Edison, and Total System Services, Inc. In addition, Intuit is
currently beta-testing a new service on its Quicken.com Web site that allows
consumers to receive bills online and pay those bills free of charge. This
service, which utilizes the CheckFree E-Bill infrastructure, is scheduled for
a full-market rollout in the third quarter of this year.
About Carolina Power & Light
Headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., Carolina Power & Light provides
electricity and energy services to about 1.2 million customers in the
Carolinas. CP&L maintains a system of 16 power plants and 60,000 miles of
power lines in the Carolinas. The company's 1998 operating revenues totaled
about $3.1 billion. For more information on CP&L, visit the company's Web
site at cplc.com .
About CheckFree
Founded in 1981, CheckFree (www.checkfree.com ), the operating subsidiary
of CheckFree Holdings Corp., is the leading provider of financial electronic
commerce services, software and related products. CheckFree designs, develops
and markets services that enable nearly three million consumers to receive and
pay bills over the Internet or electronically through a variety of bill
aggregation points, including banks, brokerage firms, portals and interactive
content sites on the Internet, and personal financial management (PFM)
software. CheckFree's range of services and products are focused on enabling
customers to make electronic payments and collections, automate paper-based
recurring financial transactions and conduct secure Internet transactions.
Certain of the Company's statements in this press release are not purely
historical, and as such are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include
statements regarding management's intentions, plans, beliefs, expectations or
projections of the future. Forward-looking statements involve risks and
uncertainties, including without limitation, the various risks inherent in the
Company's business, and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to
time in the Company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 1998, Form 10-Q
for the quarter ended March 31, 1999, Form 8-K filed May 25, 1999 and the
Company's Registration Statement on Form S-3 (No. 333-79695) filed June 1,
1999, as amended June 15, 1999. One or more of these factors have affected,
and could in the future affect, the Company's business and financial results
in future periods, and could cause actual results to differ materially from
plans and projections. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking
statements made in this document will prove to be accurate, and issuance of
such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by
the Company, or any other person, that the objectives and plans of the Company
will be achieved. All forward-looking statements made in this press release
are based on information presently available to management, and the Company
assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
SOURCE CheckFree Corporation
-0- 10/06/1999
/CONTACT: media, Judy Morris, 678-375-1595, or jdmorris@checkfree.com ,
or investors, Tina Moore, 678-375-1278, or tmoore@checkfree.com , both of
CheckFree Corporation, or Corporate Communications of Carolina Power & Light,
919-546-6189/
/Company News On-Call: prnewswire.com or fax,
800-758-5804, ext. 110744/
/Web site: cplc.com /
/Web site: checkfree.com
(CKFR CPL)
CO: CheckFree Corporation; CheckFree Holdings Corporation; Carolina Power &
Light
ST: Georgia, North Carolina
IN: MLM UTI OIL
SU: CON
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