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

To: gue who wrote (9652)	9/4/1999 3:16:00 PM
From: zuma_rk	Respond to of 20297

Here's the article -- thanks again to Willy_trader_99 over on Yahoo: accessatlanta.com Yahoo site on Web offering CheckFree bill-paying service Mark Clothier - Staff Saturday, September 4, 1999 Yahoo's bill-paying Web site, powered by Norcross-based CheckFree, is up and running. The service, which is expected to be officially announced Wednesday, makes CheckFree's payment processing service available to Yahoo's monthly visitors at bills.secure.yahoo.com/bps. Officials from Yahoo and CheckFree declined to comment. Yahoo is one of the Web's most popular sites, attracting about 32 million visitors per month, according to Media Metrix, a Web measurement firm. CheckFree processes payments for about 3 million customers. It expects to add 2 million in the next 12 months. Of those, a million will come from regular customers, which include utility, cable television and phone companies. The other million will come from new Internet sources, which include Yahoo. The service will be free to users for the first three months and then offered under two plans. A monthly charge of $7 gives a user the ability to pay up to 25 bills. For $2, a user can pay as many bills as necessary per month at 40 cents per payment. Users will be able to make payments to anyone in the United States who bills them, but they won't be able to make state and federal tax payments or court-ordered payments. The service would deduct money, as requested, from the user's bank account. "For consumers, I think this is big news," said Avivah Litan, an analyst with Gartner Group. "This could potentially be popular to 90 percent of the U.S. population." Few industry observers question whether the Internet will be a place where people will get and pay their bills. The real question is which sites they will use. Will they choose sites like Yahoo, or go to an individual biller's Web site or to their bank's? Litan said market research is showing that people, at least ones new to the idea of online bill-paying, are starting to trust portals as much as banks. Litan said America Online is expected to offer a similar service, also backed by CheckFree, to its 17 million subscribers by year's end.