www.incurrent.com

Incurrent user-customizable email alerts notify users when:

•  Their credit limit is reached or exceeded
•  Their balance is within a certain amount of the credit limit
•  Their balance exceeds a certain limit
•  The current statement closes
•  A payment item posts to the account
•  A credit item posts to the account
•  An item posts from a selected merchant
•  A posted item exceeds a certain dollar limit

The Company: Incurrent is a privately held firm located in Parsippany, NJ. It was founded in June 1997 under the name BankSite Services by a trio of Block Financial software developers which produced the WebCard Visa www.webcard.com CompuServe Visa (folded into WebCard), and the Conductor online banking platform now marketed as NetTeller by Jack Henry. Mark Betz is CEO/President, Allen Yang is CTO, and Michael Foster is VP Media Development.

The Product: The company produces a platform called CardSite that can be used by card issuers to deliver credit card data over the Internet, both on the Web and through email. The company expects typical installed prices to be in the mid $300,000s.

Partners/Customers: Incurrent has aligned with two distribution partners, PaySys International and US Interactive and is working with MotivationNet (MyPoints loyalty program). Licensees include First Financial Bank of South Dakota, Alliance Data Systems, the sixth largest private label issuer/processor, and Partners First. Counting sub-licenses, the company is working on about a dozen installations, which they expect to keep them busy for the next six months.

Features: Incurrent’s CardSite offers the most advanced functionality on the Web today.

•  customizable email alerts with optional authorization word to identify alerts to email filters (screenshot above)
•  online application with real-time response
•  current balance
•  open-to-buy amount
•  current cycle transactions
•  historical transactions (12 months+)
•  address change form
•  credit line increase request form
•  transaction dispute form
•  additional card request form
•  lost/stolen card report form
•  review customer service history
•  robust secure messaging to service reps
•  expense report creation
•  searchable account history
•  export to Quicken/Money/Excel
•  online payment of credit card bill
•  email statements (in HTML or text)
•  online help (context sensitive)
•  bill payment from card account (planned for ‘99)
•  expense categorization and memo field

CardSite offers a full-function email to/from the bank including reply and forward functions, archiving and threaded responses. Note: The “View Statement” button is at the top of every page.

Users can select expense categories and enter notes into the free-form memo field. Note: The program allows you to enter an expense category once for a given SIC class which will apply to future charges from other merchants in the same classification.

Contact: Monroe Bodden is VP Sales, (973) 781-902, ext. 16, mbodden@incurrent.com .

Incurrent has developed a feature-rich credit card platform. Its use of email for alerts and statements is progressive, and advanced functions on the plate, such as bill payment from the card account, demonstrate that the company is determined to be an innovator. Combine that with the industry experience of the founders and you have a potentially winning vendor.

Incurrent’s online statement includes:data export in .qif, .dat, and .ofx formats; print button; online payment button; mail-in payment button; abilty to add expense categories and memos; show/hide account number button; choice of views with transactions arranged in chronological order (normal view above) or organized within expense categories (expense view)

Whether the system works as billed is yet to be seen and is beyond the scope of our analysis. The company does not have any clients in production.

Even if you are not a card issuer, we think Incurrent deserves consideration as a checking account/debit card platform since it could greatly enhance the value of the data delivered on debit card transactions.

This would help differentiate your debit card/checking account from the competition and more importantly convert card and checking account transactions into profitable offline debit card charges (see table below). Although, it would take $30 million in incremental debit card volume to pay for a $300,000 system, the bigger payback is from increased traffic on your Web site and the subsequent incremental loan volume. However, with Incurrent currently operating at or near capacity, any deviations from its standard credit card model will have to come from your pocket. 8