lurqer, I followed CKFR for about 6 months about 1 1/2 years ago or so and never bought. By no means am I an expert on the subject I don't follow it closely anymore, but I'll offer an opinion anyway. Although I thought the concept of electronic bill presentment and payment was interesting and looked into using it through my bank, I found myself not being compelled to use the technology for two reasons:
First, as Mike 2.0 mentioned, automatic bank account debits to pay bills are free, easy, and painless. I love this method of paying bills, and currently about half of my regular bills are paid this way. I don't see how CKFR can compete with this technology.
Second, ORCL in particular is a competitor by selling software to companies that enables them to configure their own e-payment systems. I currently pay about 1/4 of my bills this way. The CKFR argument against this technology is that it is a pain in the ass to go to three or five different web sites and login each time in order to pay your bills. CKFR proponents argue it's easier to log in once through your bank and pay multiple bills. Well, I just don't think this argument holds too much water. I've figured out a way to make it work, and it's not too painful - or at least it's not painful enough to spend $7/month or so to use CKFR's technology.
So, I'm down to paying about 1/4 of my bills using the traditional check, stamp, and snail mail technology. I suppose I'm not alone. I figure over time even some of these bills will go to either electronic debit or e-payment using ORCL (or ORCL-like) software. Just this past month my cable company let me sign up for debit payments. Cool! But in the meantime, even snail mail isn't bad for a handful of bills and it is a reasonable alternative to CKFR's technology. I don't see myself using CKFR's EBPP unless the price comes way down in response to the other competitive alternatives (in the case of debits, this is free, which is pretty cheap). If this happens, I suspect CKFR won't be a particularly good investment vehicle.
I would be interested in reading a Project Hunt presentation on CKFR, especially if it addresses some of the issues I've raised. At this time, I'll agree with Mike 2.0 that I'm not too excited about the business, especially if we're talking about it in G&K terms. |
