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To: Benny Baga who wrote (5209)	6/18/1998 9:39:00 AM
From: AE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8545

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, June 18, 1998 Source: American Banker -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Banker via NewsEdge Corporation : Battle lines are being drawn in the emerging bill presentment market, as the promoters of various approaches round up big-name supporters. This week Just In Time Solutions announced that Intuit Inc. and AT&T Corp. are championing its method of electronic bill presentment. MSFDC, the joint venture of Microsoft and First Data Corp., said nine new billers have joined its service. And CyberCash Inc. unveiled an alliance with America Online, to promote yet another model of electronic bill presentment. All are pursuing profits in a market estimated by Piper Jaffray Research to be between $560 million and $940 million. Under the approach advocated by Intuit, AT&T, and Just In Time Solutions, billing data does not reside at a third-party consolidator's Web site. Instead, customers receive notifications of bills due and basic bill summaries by visiting either their bank's Web site or Intuit's Quicken.com. For more detailed billing information, they link directly to billers' Web sites. The aim is to let billers maintain a high level of contact with their customers. "This model looks very attractive, as it promises the convenience provided by the consolidator model but also gives control of the relationship to the biller," said Scott Smith, principal analyst at Current Analysis Inc. of Sterling, Va. An alternative bill presentment method used by Checkfree Corp. and MSFDC is known as the consolidator model. It requires billers to store detailed billing information at the bill presenter's site. Among the nine new biller participants that MSFDC announced this week are Mobil Corp., Southern California Edison Co., and Xerox Corp. "Adding new billers and financial institutions is key to our growth strategy in the months ahead," said Darren Remington, co-president of MSFDC. Advocates of yet another model, the biller-direct, say customers should go directly to billers' Web sites to obtain and pay bills. The approach is similar to that taken by wholesale banks in their relationships with billers, "which is their unique and forgotten advantage," said Richard K. Crone, vice president and general manager of Cybercash. Cybercash is helping to promote this approach through an alliance with America Online Inc. The six-month program will allow local utilities in Washington to present bills on AOL's Digital Cities service, an on-line local resource reaching more than three million people in 28 cities every month. "It is designed to give billers another way to reach consumers that is different from a consolidator," said Nancy Goldberg, general manager of interactive billing and payment services for Cybercash. "We have a large audience focused on the local community-dining, movies, autos, real estate-a virtual neighborhood," said Paul R. DeBenedictis, president of the on-line service's Digital City subsidiary. AOL expects the bill presentment service to attract more traffic to its site. Cybercash, by making payments easier with its suite of electronic payment tools, expects to conduct more on-line transactions. "It is a good marriage," Mr. DeBenedictis said. The principal effect of the varying approaches to electronic bill presentment may be to force a strategy of betting on all systems. "Home banking showed us that you need multiple delivery channels," Mr. Smith of Current Analysis said. "There is not just one way to reach consumers, and there is not just one model that is convenient for all billers. "The industry will have to suffer the immediate consequence of slower development, in return for the benefit of having as many delivery channels as the billers need," he said. Officials at Just In Time Solutions said their focus on open standards will ease the industry's growing pains. The company is promoting a common way for "publishing" electronic bills to a variety of consolidators. "If I had to think about which supermarket to go to for Peter Pan peanut butter, than the supermarket industry has failed," said Mike Lanza, chief executive officer of the San Francisco-based company. "If I have to think about which biller has a relationship with which consolidator one or two years from now, then this industry will have failed," he said. Some see no need for an open approach. "You don't need any open Internet billing standards to leverage the relationships that billers already have in place with banks," Mr. Crone said. Jessica Ostrow, vice president of marketing with MSFDC, said Just In Time has not contacted her firm to determine how its open billing system would work with MSFDC, which will be operational this fall. "We know that the competition has been talking about bill detail needing to be stored at the billers' Web site," Ms. Ostrow said. "We view that as a red herring. When we talk with billers, they want an outsourced processor to handle the entire bill detail." But many billers express reluctance to warehouse their bills at third- party locations. "We want to make our bills available" through any model, said Kevin Duffy, AT&T's manager of consumer billing strategy. "But our position is that billing detail will be stored on AT&T servers." With more than 90 million of its customers receiving monthly bills, AT&T's opinion carries weight. Its feeling on this matter appears widespread among many larger billers. "Service providers are not going to give up control of billing," said Boyd C. Peterson, director of consumer communications at Yankee Group, Boston. "Utilities will continue to send paper bills rather than give up the process of controlling the relationship with the customer," he said. "A bill is the only thing that these service providers have to communicate with their customers- otherwise, they are just a dumb pipe." Some organizations see an opportunity in the feverish competition currently confronting the industry. "Billers are getting pitched by MSFDC, Checkfree, and Just in Time, and you are hearing them bashing one another," said Jorge Martin, product manager of Internet billing with International Billing Service. "We come in after they have confused things and given decision paralysis to the biller," Mr. Martin said. His company embraces all approaches to billing, including paper invoices. "We want to give bill producers and consumers the ultimate choice about where to receive their bills," he said. Copyright c 1998 American Banker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. americanbanker.com By DREW CLARK

To: Benny Baga who wrote (5209)	6/18/1998 9:43:00 AM
From: AE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8545

Citibank is moving fast... NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE) via NewsEdge Corporation -- Aggressive National Push to Introduce Enhanced Software And Expanded Access through America Online(R) and Microsoft Internet Explorer(R) New Customers Nationwide Will Receive $25 Each - Just for Trying Free Online Banking with Citibank! Citibank, the first and only major consumer bank to offer customers free Internet banking nationwide, today unveiled a significant upgrade to its Direct Access Internet banking service, which will dramatically expand the bank's reach into homes across the United States. Specifically, Citibank's Direct Access service is now available to the millions of Americans who use America Online and Microsoft Internet Explorer to access the Internet; the service also features a new "reduced graphics option" to speed transaction time for customers. As part of its commitment to introduce more consumers to the benefits of Internet banking, Citibank will launch a massive nationwide marketing campaign for Direct Access beginning in New York City on June 17. For a limited time, the bank will offer $25 cash to every new customer who uses the new Direct Access to complete at least two bill payment transactions by September 30, 1998.(1) "Citibank is now able to deliver secure Internet banking," said Stephen J. Liguori, Citibank's Head of U.S. Branch Banking. "There are 26 million households on the Internet, and I want a million of them to be Direct Access customers by year-end. I'm confident this latest upgrade and expanded accessibility will get us there. We're planning to win these new customers from our competition - consider it a challenge to the rest of the banking industry." Revolutionizing the Way Americans Bank Recent improvements in online banking services, combined with consumers' growing familiarity with computer technology, have slowly begun to change the way Americans are conducting their banking, with recent trends showing that online banking is gaining in popularity. According to a recent report by Jupiter Communications, the number of American households using online banking jumped 78 percent in 1997, to 4.8 million, and that number is expected to reach 18 million households by the year 2002. "For years Citibank has been at the leading edge in creating and delivering the kinds of electronic banking services that truly improve peoples lives," continued Mr. Liguori. "For example, ATMs didn't catch on with the public until Citibank introduced a machine here in New York that was actually consumer-friendly and safe. Getting people to bank online and over the Internet is just the latest frontier. Now with this newest version of Direct Access, we've arrived at a point where our customers can manage their personal finances anywhere, anyway and anytime they want to." Citibank has offered online banking services to its customers in the U.S. for more than 15 years, but only recently began offering Internet banking. Customers can use the Web to quickly and conveniently access their bank accounts, pay bills to virtually anyone in the U.S., transfer funds and place orders to buy and sell securities through Citicorp Investment Services(2). The bank's Internet service was initially available only through Netscape's Navigator(R) Web browser. Citibank Named No. 1 Online Banking Service in Recent Survey This month, SmartMoney magazine(3) named Citibank "the best online bank" in the country, placing it above Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, BankBoston, Wells Fargo and First Union, among others. In ranking Citibank first among 15 of the nation's top consumer banks, SmartMoney credited Direct Access for being the best in terms of security, pricing, level of service and access to account information. This is the second straight time SmartMoney has rated Citibank number one for online banking. Citibank Blue Team Distributes Direct Access Starter Kits Nationwide To launch the latest version of Direct Access, celebrate the SmartMoney award, and reintroduce the concept of simple, safe and secure online banking to millions of potential new customers across the U.S., Citibank is planning a major, nationwide customer sign-up campaign. New customers will be encouraged to use Direct Access directly through Citibank's Web site, at www.citibank.com. Additionally, for those customers not yet on the Internet, the bank will distribute 250,000 Direct Access Starter Kits, with Web browser software, in its major retail markets around the country. In New York for example, 100 members of a special Citibank "Blue Team" will gather at the bank's headquarters on the morning of June 17 for a massive pep rally. After receiving their assignments, the Blue Team will hit the streets of Manhattan en mass and on bicycles, with a goal of distributing 40,000 Direct Access Starter Kits, to show once and for all that Citibank offers customers the best features and value available in Internet banking. After the event concludes, Citibank will donate all Blue Team bicycles to the city's Police Athletic League. Each Direct Access Starter Kit will include a CD-ROM with Netscape's Navigator Web browser software, start-up directions for using Citibank online banking, a $25 cash-back offer, plus a selection of Elton John music tracks and video clips, including the classic hit songs Bennie and the Jets, Crocodile Rock and Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting. Citibank is sponsoring the 1998 Elton John World Tour, and Elton John is appearing in a number of television ads for the bank. Still Setting the Standard for Providing Secure Online Financial Services Citibank offers the only free Internet banking service available today that lets customers perform banking transactions, pay bills, obtain stock quotes and other financial information through Citibank, and, for customers of Citicorp Investment Services, place orders to buy and sell stocks, bonds and mutual funds. In addition, Citibank customers can use online banking to begin the process of applying for a checking or savings account. Citibank continues to provide a complete range of standard online banking services as well, like the ability to view account information in real time, transfer funds between linked accounts and send/receive electronic messages with customer service staff. It also allows customers to coordinate multiple accounts, including Citibank checking and savings accounts and mortgages, Citibank credit card accounts, and Citicorp Investment Services brokerage accounts. In terms of online security, Citibank uses 128-bit encryption, the highest level of security readily available, to help protect customer information. Citibank's Direct Access online banking service is available at no extra charge to customers living anywhere in the United States. Customers can learn more by visiting Citibank's web site, at www.citibank.com. The CD-ROM starter kits, including the Elton John music and video clips, can also be ordered free by calling 1-800-374-9700. Citibank is a subsidiary of Citicorp, a global financial services organization serving consumers, businesses, governments and financial institutions through more than 3,000 locations in 100 countries and territories. (1) Certain restrictions apply. (2) Securities transactions are through Citicorp Investment Services, member NASD/SIPC, and a subsidiary of Citibank. Investment products are not obligations of or guaranteed by Citibank or Citicorp Investment Services, are not bank deposits or FDIC Insured and are subject to investment risks, including possible loss of the principal amount invested. (3) SmartMoney magazine is a joint venture of Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and Hearst Communications, Inc. CONTACT: Citibank \| Maria Mendler \| 212/559-0409 \| or \| Ruder Finn \| Joe Miller \| 212/715-1602