(BSNS WIRE)   CheckFree Marks 20 Years
CheckFree Marks 20 Years
 
 
    Business Editors
 
    ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 16, 2001--
 
  Financial services pioneer celebrates two decades of moving money
 electronically for thousands of businesses and millions of Americans
 
	   CheckFree Corporation (NASDAQ: CKFR), the leading provider of
financial electronic commerce services and products, today celebrated
20 years of industry leadership and technology innovation.
	   The company was founded in January of 1981 by Pete Kight,
CheckFree Chairman and CEO, in space his grandmother let him use
rent-free in the basement of her home in Columbus, Ohio.
	   The company Kight originally founded to introduce electronic funds
transfer services to apartment complexes and health club chains, is a
true e-commerce pioneer. Today, the services and software provided by
CheckFree's three operating divisions in aggregate enable thousands of
financial services organizations, hundreds of corporations and
millions of consumers to leverage the efficiencies, cost savings and
control of technology and the Internet to better manage their
businesses and financial lives.
	   Prior to mass consumer adoption of the Internet, CheckFree built
an industry by giving people the power to quickly pay their bills
electronically through their existing accounts at financial services
organizations using software and telephone connections. Then,
CheckFree was the first company to harness the power of the Internet
to enable consumers to pay bills, and in 1997 launched the first fully
integrated electronic billing and payment solution. This enabled
corporations to send bills and statements to their customers via the
Internet so that people could both view and pay their bills online.
Today, CheckFree i-Solutions enables billers to create electronic
billing and payment and e-statement applications that transform bills
and statements into interactive conduits for customer relationship
management, marketing and customer self service.
	   CheckFree's divisions also are leading the innovation and adoption
of technology in their respective markets. CheckFree's Investment
Services offers investment management solutions to thousands of
financial institutions across the country. Today its clients manage
more than 1,000,000 portfolios representing more than $500 billion in
assets through the services and products it provides. CheckFree's
Software Services division delivers solutions that are used to process
more than two-thirds of the nation's six billion Automated Clearing
House payments, and reconciliation and compliance products and
services to more than 400 banks and businesses.
	   "Today, if you are a consumer that moves money on the Web,
CheckFree is probably involved in some way," said Pete Kight, chairman
and CEO of CheckFree. "Our vision of 20 years ago is a reality. Our
more than 3,000 people working in 16 locations have established strong
relationships with thousands of organizations both within and outside
of the financial services industry. Over the past 20 years, our
divisions have together handled billions of electronic transactions.
We have become a company that financial institutions, billers and
consumers trust when making secure financial transactions on the
Internet, managing financial assets and investments, handling
Automated Clearing House payments, reconciling transactions and
complying with industry practices and regulations," Kight said.
	   Many of today's largest financial institutions use CheckFree
technology, including Bank of America, Bank One, Wells Fargo, First
Union, Charles Schwab, Prudential Securities and Merrill Lynch. The
company gives portals such as Yahoo!, Excite and the United States
Postal Service's eBillPay the power to improve peoples' lives by
offering electronic billing and payment at their sites. CheckFree
makes it possible for 210 of the nation's top billers, including AT&T,
Sears and Countrywide Home Loans, to deliver and receive electronic
payments and get closer to their customers.
	   "The first two decades represent just the beginning of this
dynamic new electronic payments market. We will continue to deliver
innovative technology to help our customers deliver on increasingly
high consumer expectations of what the Internet should enable them to
do," said Kight. "We envision a future where consumers can access
bills and statements as well as send and receive other electronic
payments through one simple interface. Consumers will be able to
literally pay anyone for anything from any company or individual
around the globe, from a site of their choice."
 
    About CheckFree
 
	   CheckFree (www.checkfree.com) is the leading provider of financial
electronic commerce services and products. Founded in 1981, CheckFree
launched the first fully integrated electronic billing and payment
solution in 1997. Today, CheckFree enables 4.1 million consumers to
receive and pay bills electronically. The company has multi-year
contracts with 210 of the nation's top billers to provide online
billing and payment through nearly 250 consumer service providers
(CSPs), including banks, brokerage firms, Internet portals and content
sites and personal financial management (PFM) software. CheckFree's
Software Services division provides solutions that are used to process
more than two-thirds of the nation's six billion Automated Clearing
House payments, and reconciliation and compliance products and
services to more than 400 banks and businesses. Also within the
Software Services division is CheckFree i-Solutions, which enables
billers to create electronic billing and payment and e-statement
applications that transform bills and statements into interactive
conduits for customer relationship management, marketing and customer
self service. CheckFree's Investment Services division provides a
broad range of investment management services to thousands of
financial institutions nationwide. The division's clients manage more
than 1,000,000 portfolios totaling more than $500 billion in assets.
 
	   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, 2000
(filed September 26, 2000) and Form 10-Q (filed November 14, 2000).
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.
 
    --30--lk/at*
 
    CONTACT: CheckFree, Atlanta
             Media relations
             David Fontaine, 678/375-1682
             dfontaine@checkfree.com
                or
             Investor relations
             Tina Moore, 678/375-1278
             tmoore@checkfree.com
 
    KEYWORD: GEORGIA
    INDUSTRY KEYWORD: BANKING COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS
 
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