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Countrywide
Countrywide’s Web-based preauthorized debit
sign-up form eliminates the “send a voided check” making the process more
spontaneous.
Countrywide (Pasadena, CA; $171 billion in mortgages serviced), the second largest home lender in the country, is beefing up its payment services, both for its own mortgages and anyone else. Its Web-based form for mortgage holders to sign up for preauthorized debit is well-done www1.countrywide.com/customers/homepay/homepay.html (see screenshot above) but its new pay-anyone bill payment service is ill-conceived.
Strike one, the bill payment program is not Web based. It requires users to order and install Checkfree software. Strike two, Countrywide is charging $9.95/mo, a price point that went out the window two years ago. Strike three, it’s not yet integrated with HomePay, the preauthorized debit payment service.
Presumably, the company is working with Checkfree to port this program to
the Web, but they should have waited until that work was done. Yet the
program is significant as it shows how a non-bank can use online services to
gain entry into new markets.
Contacts: Cameroun King heads the interactive unit; Tom Boone is Dir.
Loan Admin., (818) 304-8400.
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