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Technology Stocks : CheckFree (CKFR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TLindt who wrote (7656)	9/21/1998 8:03:00 PM
From: Benny Baga	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8545

>>>..the business is for sale, or they want to partner....because if TP is 2 years behind...these guys are 5. Agreed. I think BoA is screwed, mostly because of bill presentment. If you remember Pete mention that Mellon is finally coming around, and the main reason is the Threat of PNC presenting AT&T bills to consumers. Large billers (i.e. AT&T) are not going to work with individual banks, it is more cost effective to work with consolidators. When Wells Fargo rolls out bill presentment, BoA will still be scratching it's head. As far as selling out to CF, I think if CF was willing to do the deal, it would have already been done. I don't think CF want's BoA bill pay engine, I think BoA only does about 1/5 of the volume Wells does. BoA is stuck with a bill pay engine that nobody wants...Travelers Express? In any case, the way BoA talks, you would never know they were going to merge with NationsBank. Benny

To: TLindt who wrote (7656)	9/21/1998 10:24:00 PM
From: p friend	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8545

Maybe Nationsbank will give B of A bill payment business to Checkfree in exchange for a credit on the cost of the combined future payment/presentment business of the merged bank. That would get B of A out of the business, get Checkfree the merged business on a renewed contract, and give Nationsbank an important cost reduction while they are going through the costly integration of the two mega-banks. Nationsbank won't want to sell it to somebody else because it is their new customers. They would want to use it to leverage Checkfree in the contract renewal. Checkfree probably would not give a big bank a direct equity position since they can point to this as a big disadvantage of a bank doing business with TP. Therefore, if Pete's feeling that he is in good shape with Nationsbank is correct, Checkfree might just want to integrate B of A's 50,000 to 100,000 customers just to keep their payment engine out of another new competitors hands. Even if the cost of integration by itself would suggest Checkfree not do this, the bigger picture probably dictates they work it out with Nationsbank.