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

To: Sam Biller who wrote (3492)	3/6/1999 6:24:00 PM
From: Shane M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

Thread, Wanted to throw this question out: Have any of the e-billers so far offered a discount to customers who pay their phone/cable/utility bill on-line? It seems to me that if it costs $X to process a paper billing cycle, and $Y (which is <$X) to process electronically, then 1) both a discount can be justified, and 2) this discount would create a strong incentive for the cunsumer examine paying electronically. I think there is a high fear/uncertainty factor involved with electronic payments that must be overcome. IMO offering a discount will push a lot of people over the "indecisive hump," and get them to try out the service. If the first experience is good - and troublefree - then with a handfull of transactions that consumer is won-over. A big part of the battle IMO is getting people to make the first step. After that they may begin demanding electronic bill presentment. (Most people don't know that they want electronic bill presentment yet. But they will if their first experiences are good.) BTW, thanks for all the recent discussion of the INTU situation. The discussion here was better than any explanation I could find in the press. Shane

To: Sam Biller who wrote (3492)	3/6/1999 8:19:00 PM
From: Sam Biller	Respond to of 20297

Interesting thing about today's IBD article: no mention of TP and no negative comments about CheckFree from Gary Craft who was quoted extensively in the article. For the record, here are Crafty's quotes: "We have a 31,000-mile-long paper dragon. That's what you get when you put together all the paper used by banks, the Federal Reserve, the post office and our 'in' and 'out' boxes as consumers." "Attitudes are changing, and (the) technology could be the inertia breaker" "It's a killer application." "Much more money is lost through check fraud than mistakes in e-commerce." "It's egregiously inefficient," said Craft, who noted that new technology is catching on with billers because of cost factors.