T: in most cases CKFR's revenue is protected.
CKFR charges the banks/FI's a fee each month for each consumer it signs up. So these customers are using the system to pay a number of merchants. MSFDC comes along and presents one of the consumers bills electronically, and the consumer pays it that way. That would have no impact on the fee CKFR receives, because the consumer is still using the service to pay all of their other bills.
A couple of other thoughts for you and the rest of the thread.
1)The announcements that you referenced (Bank One, Key, Norwest and Wells) are only that, announcements. Those banks decided that it would be a good idea to get some press, make an announcement with MSFDC, appear to be leading the industry, etc. When it really comes down to it, if they wanted to do all those things and wanted to actually present some bills electronically to consumers, then there is only one company that can get that from today, and that is CKFR.
2)Bill presentment is not going to make any company a great deal of money for a couple of years. It is in its infancy. The value of CKFR's stock will be driven by its earnings, and the earnings will be propelled by CKFR's core business, home banking and bill payment services. Bill presentment is sexy and has a lot of sizzle, but it don't pay the bills. Taking consumer initiated bill pay instructions and then getting the money to the billers is what CKFR is good at, and is the service that will lead to the earnings we all expect. There are not many other companies that offer that service, and those that offer it don't do it as well as CKFR.
3)CKFR has gone toe-to-toe with some other big competitors that were supposed to eat its lunch. Let's look to the past. Visa Interactive (VI) was supposed to be the demise of CKFR. Where is that organization today? Then there was Intuit Services Corp (ISC). When ISC first launched, they were signing all of the big banks and getting all this great press. Unfortunately, ISC could not make any money running the services, so they sold out to CKFR. Then along came Integrion. When Integrion was announced, CKFR's stock took a hit because they were going to kick CKFR's butt, just like VI and ISC. Now they are in an alliance with CKFR. My point is that there have been a number of well funded, large organizations try to get into this business, presumably because it looks like easy pickin's. But it is not an easy business. Getting money to merchants accurately and on time is a tough, ugly business that takes years of making mistakes to get right. So MSFDC can make all the announcements for pilots for a yet to be developed service, and it don't mean a thing.
Of course, all IMO. |
