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

To: zuma_rk who wrote (9687)	9/7/1999 8:11:00 AM
From: Benny Baga	Respond to of 20297

Online Billing Gets A Boost -- Yahoo To Ease Into Offering The Service September 7, 1999 INFORMATIONWEEK : Online billing has yet to catch on with the masses, but a growing number of companies are trying to change that by making cyberbills more accessible. Yahoo Inc. and a large company that handles printed bills for utilities and other companies plan to launch Web billing initiatives in the next few weeks. Yahoo's move will place it alongside the Microsoft Network as the only top-rated Internet sites to offer online billing. Yahoo-the most popular site on the Web, according to Media Metrix Inc.-could give online billing a real boost if its millions of customers start to pay bills on its site. Yahoo will begin with bill payment and gradually add features such as bill presentment, online enrollment, and customer service. A spokeswoman for Yahoo says the service will be rolled out in stages this fall. Mark Johnson, vice chairman of CheckFree Corp., which is providing the billing technology to Yahoo, says, "You'll see something in the next few weeks." Another heavyweight is also preparing to raise its profile in the online market. On Sept. 27, Output Technology Solutions Inc., which handles statements for mutual fund and other companies, will debut a service called YourAccounts.Com that aims to help companies manage the online bills and statements they send to consumers. Output Technology prints and mails about 130 million bills and statements each month on behalf of businesses. It already handles online bills for a handful of companies, according to VP of marketing Tom Roberts, and has agreements to distribute those bills to consumers via CheckFree and TransPoint LLC. Roberts says it hopes to land similar deals with portals and banks that are gathering online bills for people. Banks, portals, and other companies are interested in online billing as a way to pitch new products to customers. Banks have an edge, according to Brian Valente, senior marketing director at Just in Time Solutions Inc., a billing software provider that will release an update to its BillCast product later this month. Says Valente, "Banks fundamentally have much better access to your money than portals do." Copyright c 1999 CMP Media Inc. By Gregory Dalton <<INFORMATIONWEEK -- 09-06-99, p. PG36>> [Copyright 1999, CMP Publications]