To: Benny Baga who wrote (8343 ) 7/23/1999 8:24:00 AM From: BeverlyB7 Respond to
From last night's "Bull-Market Report" by Todd Shaver. It is an online investment newsletter for subscribers. The eddress:
www.bull-market.com
I note, however, that I have read news reports (on Yahoo) in the past quoting Killen & Assoc as saying that EBPP will be "the killer app". In those news articles, however, CKFR was not mentioned!
Beverly
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CHECKFREE AND VIRGINIA POWER LAUNCH ELECTRONIC BILLING AND PAYMENT
OPTION
Virginia Power Joins Growing Number of Utilities That Offer CheckFree
E-Bill
ATLANTA, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- CheckFree (Nasdaq: CKFR - news) and
Richmond-based Virginia Power today announced that Virginia Power
customers now have the option to receive and pay their monthly electric
bill via the Internet. Virginia Power, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Dominion Resources Inc. (D), provides electricity to 2 million homes and
businesses across a 30,000 square-mile area covering parts of Virginia
and North Carolina.
In addition to Virginia Power, CheckFree currently works with 16 of the
nation's largest utilities to offer electronic billing and payment
(EBP). Of these 16 companies, half are actively presenting bills to
consumers. The remainder are scheduled to introduce their EBP service to
the market by the end of 1999.
According to a recent study by market research firm Killen & Associates,
by the end of 2000 almost 8 billion repetitive bills will be presented
electronically each year. The study also states that sending paper bills
costs 60 cents to $1.40 per bill, while presenting bills on-line can cut
that cost to approximately 50 cents. Overall, the Killen report asserts
that U.S. utilities could save $1.2 billion in billing costs by using
electronic bill presentment and payment. [Wow.]
COMMENT: Ladies and Gentleman, you heard it here first: EBP is the next
killer app and CheckFree (CKFR-$33, up 2%) is going to lead the
onslaught. In the above Press Release there were 10 web sites that you
could go to NOW to sign up for online bill paying, including the
Virginia Power site, the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter site, Bank One,
Charles Schwab, First Union, etc. I HATE to write that check each month
and now I will have my electric bill automatically debited from my
account each month. I can1t wait!
It is interesting that CheckFree is advertising for the same banks that
supposedly were starting their own bill paying site and were going to
hurt them. It turns out that CheckFree will be doing the back office and
infrastructure work for this new operation and won1t lose a dime in
revenues. In fact, this new entry can only expand the marketplace. We
are using the latest pullback to add more shares to our portfolio. We
are most excited about this company, more so than any other aggressive
firm in our portfolios. Is there risk involved? You bet. Is there
potential reward involved? We certainly think so.
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