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Strategies & Market Trends : e-Commerce the Next 100 Months...... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cm who wrote (1011)	5/22/1998 9:33:00 AM
From: cm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2882

Much More Relevant News: CKFR and Visa... Visa, Checkfree to Create E-Payment Infrastructure [May 22, 1998] Visa U.S.A. and CheckFree said they plan to form a joint venture that will create the next generation electronic bill payment and remittance infrastructure for financial institutions and billers. Combining the funds transfer services of Visa's ePay electronic debit and settlement product with CheckFree's remittance data services, the new joint venture will enable financial institutions to offer their customers an end-to-end, electronic billing and payment capability. "Our joint venture with CheckFree enables Visa to combine its core strengths in the electronic payments realm with the resources of the leading electronic bill payments processor," said William E. Stewart, executive vice president of Visa U.S.A. Said Peter J. Kight, chairman and CEO of CheckFree: "This alliance marks the beginning of a new era as we move to all-electronic delivery and settlement for electronic bill payments and even small business and consumer-to-consumer payments." The joint venture infrastructure will work seamlessly with all major front- ends being used by financial institutions, including the Integrion Financial Network's IFS platform, the companies said. Integrion said it played a key role in bringing together Visa (an owner of Integrion) and CheckFree (Integrion's strategic partner for bill presentment and payment processing). Integrion is an alliance between 17 of the nation's largest financial institutions, IBM and Visa U.S.A., collectively representing more than 75% of the nation's banking households. Last modified: Friday, 22-May-1998 09:08:33 EDT

To: cm who wrote (1011)	5/26/1998 6:38:00 PM
From: cm	Respond to of 2882

An Admittedly Very Conservative Idea... Hmmm... cash is looking real, real good now. But, beyond cash, which is a non-investment unless you have enough of it to launder your cocaine-smuggling friends' ill-gotten gains, here's my thinking for the New Market... i.e. big quivering mass of uncertainty. Try to find a company who is PROFITABLE or almost profitable off-line...and just now beginning to explore the possibilities of how e-commerce can change their business processes, open new markets. I know, I know, this doesn't sound exactly like genius... not that you expected that, mind you. And it even sounds almost stupid when you realize how hard it might be to find companies on the electronic cusp. Found one the other day: TRAC, which has been selling investment and market tracking software offline... but now has opened a Web site with streaming real-time quotes (reasonable monthly price) and something they say approximate real-time quotes (which, I think, is free or almost.) They are profitable... not hugely so... but profitable. Now, this is my new MODEL. A company that's offline and profitable. That's just beginning to explore the online realm, or (for the more venturesome among us) could even be projected as a natural e-commerce evolutionary play. Kind of conservative. Kind of safe. Kind of interesting? I leave that to others. Best Regards, c m