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

To: D Mueller who wrote (19654)	7/29/2002 7:14:32 PM
From: noiserider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20297

More on Metavante-Spectrum Noise ********************* Metavante Set to Acquire EBPP Provider Spectrum** American Banker Monday, July 29, 2002 By Steve Bills Metavante Corp. plans to announce today that it is acquiring Spectrum EBP LLC, the electronic bill presentment consortium — a deal that ends months of speculation about the future of the beleaguered bank-owned enterprise. The three banks that set up the Atlanta-based outfit in 1999 — J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Wachovia Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. — did so to provide a bank-run alternative to big vendors like CheckFree Corp. But the venture never seemed to gain momentum. In 2000, the same year that CheckFree bought a major competitor in Transpoint LLC, Spectrum embarked on a lengthy search for a chief executive officer, and complaints about extended delays in bringing the presentment service to market soon followed. The deal is a big boost for Metavante, the technology subsidiary of Milwaukee-based banking company Marshall & Ilsley Corp., which has been in hot pursuit of CheckFree, the market leader. While CheckFree, also of Atlanta, is exclusively an electronic bill payment and presentment company, Metavante offers a wide range of services, from customer relationship management to electronic funds transfer and Internet banking. By adding Spectrum to its lineup, as well as the 24 banks committed to using Spectrum’s network for routing e-bills, Metavante will have access potentially to 60% of the nation’s credit card customers, said Hans Mykelbust, Metavante’s vice president of electronic presentment and payment. “And those are national players,” Mr. Mykelbust said. “If I’m a regional biller, I’m not dependent on my regional bank now.” Michael Hayford, the chief financial officer and an executive vice president of Metavante, said the deal, which is expected to close in late August, is “needed to help drive the adoption and growth of this industry.” (The price of the deal was not disclosed.) Mr. Hayford said the merger talks grew out of Metavante’s longstanding relationship with Spectrum. In August 2000 Spectrum hired Metavante to provide a pay-anyone electronic bill payment service on an outsourced basis. In December, the two organizations announced a partnership under which Metavante would distribute electronic bills from its 90 biller customers to the nearly eight million online customers served by Spectrum’s founding banks. Metavante already offers a variety of products that let billers put their statements on the Internet and consumers view them. With the addition of Spectrum’s switching capabilities, “those pieces will be integrated together for someone who doesn’t want to deal with the parts,” Mr. Hayford said in an interview Friday. He said Metavante would provide “a bundled offering” for customers who wanted a turnkey solution but that it would also continue to sell the individual components. Executives at Spectrum could not be reached Friday. “For the last few months, we’ve had ongoing dialogue,” Mr. Hayford said, describing the thinking at Spectrum that “somebody else might be in a better position to take the concept of an open switch and take it to the next level. We believe we are best positioned to do that. Being a very bank-centric organization, we have very similar philosophies and beliefs.” Metavante also has been active in acquiring other players in the EBPP space. It gained the majority of its biller customers by buying Derivion, another Atlanta company, in June 2001, and its purchase last month of Cyberbills of San Jose, Calif., brought it 450,000 enrolled consumers. Earlier this month Metavante bought the biller-direct technology provider Paytrust Inc., gaining marquee customers such as American Express Co. and Citigroup Inc. Beth Robertson, a senior analyst at the advisory firm TowerGroup, in Needham, Mass., called the deal “a step toward the maturity of the market” and said it would help bring order to the chaotic e-billing industry. “The pieces have been there, but it’s been difficult for people entering the market to know how to put the pieces together in a cost-effective way,” she said. Billers will now find “an increased ease in entering the market, because all the pieces are in place.”

To: D Mueller who wrote (19654)	7/29/2002 7:21:24 PM
From: peat	Respond to of 20297

>>>Does anybody know if Checkfree has plans to promote the site or co-brand it?<<< bills.com possible a slightly better and wider service along with the offering of all that CKFR has in their offering. PK

To: D Mueller who wrote (19654)	7/29/2002 11:06:48 PM
From: TLindt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

>>>I am still in full agreement with Tom that they really need to provide a centralized statement storage feature (perhaps on your own hard drive) for permanent record keeping. It unnerves me a bit that I will not be able to get at a statement history going back any real length of time should I need it. DRM>>> I'm in the building thing again, I've had about 7 or 8 cement trucks out here this summer, put down a foundation for another 10,000 sq.ft. And I can account for every penny of it, but I still think CKFR nicked me for $400 on the 17th day of April in the year of our Lord 2002 on a payment from me to my wife they deducted from my account and she never received. Last time I bitched about this, 3 of my corporate payments, unrelated, paid a month in advance, arrived a month and a week late, after the month due. Pete Kight, you better find out what is going on, who is reading this and jacking OFF my money. I move 10 to 20k a month via this service, and money withdrawn from my accounts dissapears for 2 to 3 weeks before it hits my payee.....and mostly in the last month they aint been getting it. PUSH MY MONEY ON MY PAPER, NOT YOURS...I KNOW WHEN IT CLEARS ON MY PAPER, ALLS I GET USING CKFR THIS LAST MONTH IS THE FIRST 3 PAST DUE BILLS WITH LATE FEES I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIVE. YOU TOOK THE MONEY AND IT WAS LATE. I'M PAYING NOVEMBER BILLS UP NEXT ON YOUR SERVICE, AND YOU ARE ARE LATE IN JULY DUE NOW STUFF, WITH THE AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER STUFF ALREADY IN YOUR HANDS. >>>>I am still in full agreement with Tom that they really need to provide a centralized statement storage feature (perhaps on your own hard drive) for permanent record keeping.>>> Too bad I didn't never meet Pete Kight; I'd told him what he needed to do. They are getting about as dumbass as blue cross and blue shield of michigan on stuff. a 17 Billion dollar company?, or some damm 500 million dollar company in hot-lanta pumping checks? Don't matter; one I sold and used, the other I just use. I fixed the one I sold(the 17 billion dollar bastard). I know this too..... What do you want to know?