Just when you thought the banks were gaining an upper hand in the electronic bill payment battle, up pops a newcomer with a fresh approach. Take a moment to check out Billeo. An odd name, but so is iPod, and it seems to be working pretty well.

We haven't used it yet, so these comments are preliminary, but "on paper" this company and its approach appear to be winners. (One caveat: the business model is unknown, and the privacy policy is a bit ambiguous when it comes to the issue of adware. We'll keep you posted on what we find out.)

Billeo is a free toolbar-resident application that plays "virtual assistant," enabling more convenient and controlled direct bill payment at vendor sites. The toolbar also serves as an e-wallet simplifying online point-of-sale transactions.

Analysis
The toolbar contains several unique features, one of which is extremely impressive, the ability to save screen captures of transaction receipts. The application also includes payment reminders, a payment register, and a personal "bill payment" email address for users.

There are several familiar names associated with the startup. Nancy Langer, a former exec at Metavante, is the president. The advisory board includes Eric Dunn, formerly with Intuit, Shankar Srinivasan co-founder of Cyberbills, and Scott Loftesness of Glenbrook Partners.

We'll dissect the new service in Part 2 of our upcoming Electronic Payments Report in Online Banking Report.

--JB

Editor's Note: Billeo was named "OBR Best of the Web" in the second part of its series on E-Payments (OBR 119) published in June 2005.