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Microcap & Penny Stocks : ECNC: BETTING, INC. A WAGER ON NEW GAMING TECHNOLOGY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorjenzak who wrote (2862)	6/23/1999 3:09:00 PM
From: Jorjenzak	Respond to of 2909

Another competitor or two we had not recognized? Depends on how you define the market, of course. Comments? CheckFree Down On Competition Fears 14:44 06-23-99 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of electronic payments company CheckFree Holdings Corp. fell sharply Wednesday on fears a new electronic billing venture announced by three leading U.S. banks would take away business. Chase Manhattan Corp., the third largest U.S. banking company; First Union Corp. and Wells Fargo and Co. said Wednesday they would form a company to let consumers and businesses receive and pay bills electronically. This would compete with one of CheckFree's businesses -- a router that sends bills electronically to consumers -- and gets at the core of the struggle to handle the rising flow of payments crossing the Internet daily, an analyst said. ''Three large banking clients announced the formation of a for-profit business initiative to provide digital switching for the electronic presentment of bills to consumers,'' Richard Zandi, an analyst at Salomon Smith Barney said. ''This is part of what CheckFree does, but it is the part that is at the heart of the Internet bill payment business model.'' CheckFree stock slumped $8.06 to $29.63 in afternoon trading, and neared the top of the most active stocks on the Nasdaq market. The company, which handles billing and online payments for banks, said in response: ''There is just confusion in the marketplace.'' The banks starting the new company, to be called The Exchange until the naming process is complete, have a customer base of 60 million consumers and small businesses as well as more than 59,000 corporations. They intend to offer a system that would work with a variety of computers regardless of the technology used by individual companies.