Sorry you seem unwilling to discuss the "details", Tom, of on line bill presentment. I certainly understand why e-bills make sense for the billers (saves money, better marketing), and the portals (stickey), but I cannot think of one benefit to the consumer. The key to CKFR remains bill payment, and the keys to that are security, consumer advertising and scale (% of bills paid totally electronically).
We need to grow bill payment to from 3.5 to 20 million users. That simple.
After 2:00 I charge 25 cents a question...just so you know you owe me a buck-fifty, not a buck an a quarter!
Below are my issues with bill presentment (and Mobius, indirectly):
I am a two year user of on line bill pay, but skeptic of e-bill presentment.
1) I find having a paper copy very handy, and even necessary, for most bills.
That is fine for personal bills if you the amount is fixed and you pay a fixed abount and the balance goes to zero every cycle, unless you paid and the balance is NOT zero, gotta look for a mail cross etal. So yea it's handy. How long do you need that bill...till next month personally billed stuff. If it's for taxes or business, you may need it for a very long time beyond that month.
2) E-bill saves money for the biller, not the consumer, so SHOW ME THE MONEY. Until then I do not care...
SHOW ME THE MONEY can be replaced with SAVE ME SOME TIME speaking as a consumer, I have 9 inches of mail to go through sitting on my desk in the horizonal, and 12 inches in two 6 inch vertical slots. E-Trade, E-Trade, American Express, Olk Kent, NetBank, the 5 bills I got a month, yada, yada, yada, Credit Card statements...lumber bills..just pile them up. Turn on the bill pay for the bills and give them a good look every six months and I never get far behind...I just need to see how close we are. So anything I'm getting mailed I'm not interested in opening up. Just pile it...
Hell I just found out I was selected for jury duty in July, I ain't seen no Sherrifs out to the house, so I guess I'm excused from that call. They probably I figure I'm dead.
I hate mail, and I hate the phone...but I like the computer. All you guys messages were right here in my SI box for me....wouldn't it be nice if my bills were too? Sorted and archived too, but not by thread, but by my Vendor...A History, yea that's it...A History, of my incoming mail (bills), (ala SI chat) and all the responses archived and sorted by topic/vendor, all the history; commumincations and chat by biller.
3) It will be a long time before 4 e-bills are possible for me. Outa my 20 or so bills, only one is now e-bill capable. One e-bill? Who cares?
I do, if they could do 3 with my billers.
4) If I do e-bill, I will want to view the entire bill (and would endure any marketing info, as I do now with paper bills), not just an overview.
Checkfree can't do that, MOBI proposes to do that. See mobie is not a "payment" company. They are a "presentment" company. They propose that EBPP starts with; "presentment". Doesn't start with payment, it ends with payment...but first you must have presentment. Accurately, and in detail.
5) I would want to download and store the complete e-bill in my computer, backed up, not in some remote site that could go away. Where would that put MOBI?
MOBI would "present" the bill...after you asked you computer to go out an look at the billers site for it and store it on your computer for your later review. It would be like, OK. I get electric bills computer...I get my electrice bills from AEP, here's my account number. Everytime I you on go check and see if I got any bills from AEP and store them in my sorted bill archive right here on my C: drive...if you find one let me know, otherwise fuckya, don't bother me. Don't make me go look for it either. If you find one let me look at it in detail, give me a button to push if I want to pay it, store what's received and sent, what I did, what they did..and how we stand. Update my Quicken....and don't screw with me any more. That is MOBI. But they don't do payments.
They do Presentment, Archive. Mailman & File Cabinet.
Can't have EBPP without Mailman...Can't have B2B EBPP without File Cabinet.
MOBI.....And CKFR can pay them all...I don't care, but ain't necessary....I really want my mails sorted and filed, paying's easy. |
