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Technology Stocks : BillServ.Com(BLLS) Going for the EBPP Market Small Billers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul S. who wrote (353)	6/23/1999 7:06:00 PM
From: Redman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 918

How will the following release affect BLLS ? After carefully reading it, it seems to me that the banks (the exchange) will want someone like BLLS to deliver to them, especially since they state they are going to talk to portals. Any thoughts is appreciated. Red Banks' Web pact rattles Checkfree By Emily Church, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 5:54 PM ET Jun 23, 1999 NewsWatch NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Three of the nation's largest banks are forming a company to become a "switching station" for billing via the Internet, a move that rattled shares of online payment company Checkfree Holdings Corp. Today on CBS MarketWatch Nasdaq closes higher, Dow dips Nasdaq may go IPO Multex.com buys Market Guide Oil sector jumps on supply squeeze StockWatch: CEOs, Hong Kong and more More top stories... CBS MarketWatch Columns Updated: 6/23/99 4:17:04 PM ET The three, Chase Manhattan (CMB: news, msgs), Wells Fargo (WFC: news, msgs) and First Union (FTU: news, msgs), are already among the more active traditional banks on the Internet. The new, for-profit company, called The Exchange, will route electronic billing for the three banks. The Exchange will earn revenue from fees associated with moving bills across their switch, the banks said. The banks may be seeking to protect fees that they make from managing payments to merchants -- fees that upstarts like CheckFree Corp. (CKFR: news, msgs) can take away. Checkfree shares fell 24 percent or 8 15/16 to 28 3/4 Wednesday (see 10-day chart below). Georgia-based CheckFree, which has arrangements with some 350 banks, provides electronic processing services and financial application software. The three banks have a customer base of nearly 60 million customers and small businesses and 59,000 corporations and institutions. The banks are also estimated to have between 25 percent to 40 percent of U.S. households online, executives told reporters on a conference call Wednesday. The banks expect to begin beta-testing in about a week and to roll out an early phase of the service available to the three banks in October, before the banks block new applications ahead of Y2K, said Sharon Osberg, head of Wells Fargo's online services. After the Y2K freeze is lifted "we expect to have many more banks and billers online," she said. The banks are aiming at building a "critical mass" of billers and their customers to "jumpstart" electronic billing, said Ronald Braco, a senior vice president at Chase who head of steering committee at The Exchange. Top priority "This is a key initiative we're embarking on here," Braco said. "Electronic billing is at the highest level (of priority) of all organizations... The utility provides the stickiness we are looking for in keeping our customers banking with us as we go forward." The three banks said The Exchange is being built to provide an open, interoperable mechanism for exchanging online bills and that membership is open to financial institutions. The banks said that The Exchange is being built to compliment existing services and that they do not see themselves competing with Integrion, another bank-led consortium involving in electronic bill presentation and payment services. Executives also said they would "work with both CheckFree and Transpoint." TransPoint is a joint venture with Microsoft (MSFT: news, msgs), First Data and Citibank (C: news, msgs) that launched its online billing service in May. Middle component "The Exchange itself is building the middle component that hooks billers to consumers," said Wells' Osberg. "There is a whole space for competition from the biller side and consumer side." Internet portals will also likely be approached. "We are very interested in working with portal partners. We think we have terrific content to offer here," Braco said. CheckFree has been working to sign up portals with its E-Bill offering. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Braco said each bank committed "significant resources to make sure this move forward rapidly." Sun Microsystems (SUNW: news, msgs) will build the operating platform, the companies said in a statement. Integrion, a service governed by Bank of America Corp.(BAC: news, msgs) and Bank One Corp. (ONE: news, msgs), will use The Exchange as part of its electronic billing services, the banks said. Emily Church is the New York bureau chief for CBS MarketWatch