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Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TLindt who wrote (9172)	8/16/1999 1:01:00 PM
From: DMauch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

I found this today, don't know if this was posted here before: enquirer.com Paying bills via the Internet may free up two hours -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Web site will gather all the data for you BY PAUL DAVIDSON USA Today For Jim Moran, paying the monthly bills was both a numbing chore and a maddening race against the calendar. Open the envelope, write the check, log it, put on the stamp - I dreaded it,? said the 34-year-old head of a San Francisco ad agency. Making matters worse were his frequent two-week business trips. Bills, piled high on the bachelor's kitchen table, ?would often be overdue by the time I got back. I got slapped with late fees.? But a few months ago, Mr. Moran signed up with Paytrust, an Internet startup that lets subscribers receive and pay all bills online for $7.95 a month. Paytrust notifies him by e-mail when bills arrive. He just goes to his account on Paytrust's Web site, reviews them and clicks the pay button. A two-hour ritual has been trimmed to 15 minutes. With his laptop, Mr. Moran can fire off payments from anywhere in the world. ?There's a lot less paper in my life,? he said. ?I feel more in control.? The Internet - streamlining the way people buy goods, get information and communicate ? is intensifying its efforts to simplify perhaps the most universal hassle: paying bills. So far, consumers have not flocked to online bill payment. That's largely because its biggest purveyors, major banks, haven't promoted it much and charge about $5 a month to let subscribers make payments on their PCs. Most can't actually get their bills on line. Instead, envelopes must still be opened and amounts keyed in. But that's changing. While 26 percent of high-volume payees display bills at their own Web sites to slash mailing costs, a growing number are starting to funnel them to bank and other one-stop Web sites. Few consumers want to hop to eight different sites to see their bills. Perhaps more significant, Internet portals, including America Online and Yahoo, are expected this fall to offer online bill payment under their own brands and heavily promote it to their millions of users, giving the industry a major jolt. And high volumes could lower the cost to $3 or $4 a month for consumers, analysts say. Both AOL and Yahoo have inked deals with CheckFree, the largest processor, analysts say. AOL's Rob Shenk would not confirm that but acknowledged AOL will soon start offering bill payment. Yahoo officials did not return phone calls. For those audience magnets, it will be a key way to corral surfers. ?A lot of people have stock portfolios, but everyone has a checking account; so it's a much more elemental service,? Mr. Shenk said. Meanwhile, online brokerages, such as Charles Schwab and Fidelity, which already serve 10 million online traders, could outflank banks and portals by more heavily promoting bill payment in their bids to manage all of a consumer's finances in one place. Also joining the fray are tiny Web-based startups, such as Paytrust, Cyberbills and PayMyBills. At $8 to $10 a month, they are pricey, but have an early leg up because they can already deliver all bills online by scanning paper bills onto their Web sites. As the various players seize on electronic bill payment as a way to attract customers and sell them other products, the industry's market share is expected to rocket from 4 percent of U.S. households to 70 percent in a decade, according to GartnerGroup. The research firm expects revenue to soar from $250 million this year to $1.7 billion in 2002. ?Getting people to pay bills on line is a big hurdle,? Gartner analyst Avivah Litan said. ?But once they do they won't go back: It's much easier.? The main bout is expected to pit stodgy banks against nimble Web portals. Banks are trustworthy money managers, but glacial marketers. Portals are lightning-fast promoters but might struggle to earn the trust of consumers already leery of managing their money in cyberspace. That's more perception than reality. Banks, portals and brokerages all use the same third-party services to debit bank accounts and pay bills. Yet banks worry they will become mere cash depositories if many consumers pay bills at portals, diminishing the need for checking accounts. Banks would also have fewer chances to tout mortgages and savings accounts. ?You don't want to turn your brand over to a portal,? Wachovia Bank's Lawrence Baxter said. Mr. Litan believes portals could race past banks by drawing millions of surfers and offering free service for a few months. But while their customers will pay bills on line, they won't be able to check balances or transfer money.