Checkfree’s E-Bill online bill presentment program held its “public” unveiling last month with nine pilot merchant customers and promises of more to follow in coming months. Oddly for a new payment program, testers are limited to simply viewing billing statements; the all-important payment link won’t be operational until June.

Checkfree’s newly designed Web includes a flashing link to its E-Bill demo in the lower left-hand corner.

At the bottom of its opening Web page, Checkfree provides a drop-down box with links to 100+ financial institution clients offering home banking.

More than a year in development, E-Bill lets consumers view graphical representations of utility, phone, and other bills aggregated on a single Web site. For now, that site is located on Checkfree’s cyberturf at <getbills.checkfree.com> (Checkfree has also registered the domain name <ebill.com> and is using <www.pay.mybills.com> for its own WebPay bill payment program), but the company is seeking banking partners to take over front-end duties. Eventually, the point of bill presentment could be on a bank’s site , at a software company , or anywhere else .

Surprisingly, the only financial services organizations involved at this time are Capstead Mortgage Corp and The CUNA Mutual Group (insurance only). No banks have signed onto the program yet, but Checkfree officials are optimistic they will once the company has drawn enough billers into the fold — and there’s no shortage of merchants eager to give E-Bill a try, said Checkfree spokesman Matt Lewis (770.734.3404, matt_lewis@atl.checkfree.com).

At E-Bill’s official March 4 launch, five organizations were in the midst of small pilots and four others publicly announced they were planning E-Bill trials.

Capstead Mortgage Corp., a national mortgage banking firm in Dallas (assets $10 billion), won’t expand E-bill beyond an initial pilot test until online bill presentment and payments are linked, said Sally Wilson, Capstead’s VP of Business Development (214.874.2336). Capstead has tested E-Bill with about 100 customers since December. “Having the payment capability is the more valuable feature, so we’ll (wait) to do something more promotional in nature when it’s available,” Wilson said. Capstead is planning on delivering complete mortgage account information at its Web <www.capstead.com/pages/custctr.htm>.

Checkfree has signed up other billers but isn’t naming names. “We don’t want anyone else to know what a fast start we’re off to,” Lewis said.

Vendors begin to surface
Checkfree is one of at least nine companies that have announced bill presentment programs in varying stages of development. Online payments specialist CyberCash, of Reston, VA, and four partners began pilot tests of the PayNow service in February and expect to offer it to consumers in the second half of the year. Visa expects to offer its Epay service later this year, but it has been slow to evolve, and may be stalled due to internal issues surrounding its Visa Interactive unit. Other companies who are believed to be working on bill presentment programs for merchants and/or financial institutions: Princeton Telecom, Electronic Funds & Data Corp. <www.billsite.com>, InteliData <www.intelidata.com>, Home Financial Network <www.homeatm.com>, International Billing Services <www.billing.com>, and BlueGill Technologies <www.bluegill.com>.

Analysts have called bill presentment the Holy Grail of electronic bill payment, which has floundered for a number of reasons, including lack of true end-to-end electronic transactions and the public’s general reluctance to change bill-paying habits. But if people can see and manipulate their bills online, they might be more encouraged to pay them online as well, said Karen Epper, an online banking analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, MA. For more information on bill presentment, refer to the Online Banking Report.

How it works
Bills are delivered to Checkfree from its biller partners. It’s up to the billing organization to determine what detail is presented. In the case of GPU Energy, its bills list user name, meter number, current and prior month’s meter readings, electricity used, and payment due.

Users log-in to the Checkfree bill presentment secure Web site, <https://getbills.com> with username and password to pay their bills. Checkfree wisely uses outbound e-mail to notify users whenever a bill has been waiting four days without viewing.

Users can schedule payments using either of two approaches. With the express view (first screenshot below), users check a “pay” box beside each bill they want to pay, then hit enter and it’s done.

Alternatively, users can select the full three-frame view (second screenshot below) that provides complete billing details and an online “check” for payment.

Checkfree uses three scrollable frames to present the bill detail, bill pay menu, and payment device. While normally we don’t like frames, especially three to a page, this implementation works. Each frame has a distinct use, and it makes sense to separate them into unique scrollable units.

• Right-hand frame: This is the Web “real-estate” devoted to presenting the bill. Biller clients can personalize the look with logos, text, hyperlinks, and online advertisements. In this example, GPU has three menu choices at the top of the bill: Marketing, Terms and Conditions, and Customer Care. Each takes users to text located underneath the billing detail.
• Upper left-hand frame: Checkfree scores points here for ease-of-use. A check metaphor is used to authorize payment. The “check” is already filled out with the current date, payee name, payment amount, and user name. All that’s required for payment is a tap on the “click to pay” button.
• Lower left-hand frame: This is the menu for Checkfree’s bill presentment module. In the demo, users are linked to Checkfree customer service, the user’s filing cabinet of pending bills, the express screen of all new bills (screenshot previous page), what’s new, add new biller, or “zoom in” which turns the right-hand “bill presentment” frame into a full-screen view. Bank involvement coming soon.

Most companies establishing bill presentment programs seem to more-or-less agree that banks will play a key role in helping consumers make the shift to digital bill payment. With some 200+ financial institution clients, Checkfree is counting on its solid standing to come out on top. Forrester’s Epper gives the company the early lead. “CyberCash, even with its reputation, is an Internet startup and doesn’t have as well grounded a history as Checkfree does,” Epper said.

Checkfree will offer banks two options: set up E-Bill on a bank’s in-house Web server for institutions that want total control, or provide the service behind the scenes on Checkfree’s Web server for institutions who’d rather farm out the work.

E-Bill will also be available in an e-mail only version too, for banks that want to go that route, Lewis said. Whatever the option, Checkfree and its bank partners will split an unspecified transaction fee from merchants who use the service. Checkfree will also collect transactions fees from banks for any bills paid through its system.

Coming enhancements
E-Bill and other bill presentment programs could get a boost next fall with the release of new versions of Quicken and Money 97 that include Open Financial Exchange specifications supporting bill presentment. “So in Quicken, for example, you’ll have a button or icon that flashes and says you have a bill, you’d click on it, it picks up the bills at the (Web) site and brings them to you to pay,” Lewis said.

Realizing that most bills are pretty routine, Checkfree will be adding custom payment options to make it even easier to get the bills paid. Users will be able to define acceptable bill pay “authorization” parameters that trigger automatic payment of the bill. For example, if your cable bill is generally $22.50 each month, you tell Checkfree to pay it automatically if it is less than $25. If you (or your kids) got carried away with pay-per-view and the bill is higher than your limit, you’ll be notified so that you can review the billing before making a final payment authorization.

Ultimately, push technology and customization features will be critical to widespread acceptance of online bill presentment and payment. “Whether it’s Marimba or Pointcast, Netscape or a software program is irrelevant. We have to ensure data and bills that we format can run through any of those,” Checkfree’s Lewis said.