Consumers
to View and Pay Bills Online at CheckFree
Distribution Sites Using Pitney Bowes Technology
DANBURY,
CT (February 22, 2000) -- Pitney Bowes Inc.
(NYSE:PBI), the global leader in mail and messaging
management, and CheckFree (NASDAQ:CKFR), the leader
in electronic billing and payment services, today announced
an agreement which will allow the customers of companies
using Pitney Bowes’ Digital
Document Delivery® (D3) solution to view and
pay bills online via CheckFree’s extensive network of
electronic billing and payment sites. These include
those sites sponsored by CheckFree partners and consumer
service providers including banks, brokerage firms,
Internet portals and content sites, and personal financial
management software—using Pitney Bowes D3 technology.
Pitney Bowes has aggressively been reaching out to its
customer base consisting of Global 2000 companies to
introduce its technology for online bill presentment.
The
Pitney Bowes D3 Internet billing solution benefits billers
by lowering the cost of distributing statements, accelerating
their delivery to near instantaneous status, expediting
the receipt of payments, and enhancing the value of
messages by tailoring inserts to specific customer profiles.
D3 is also capable of extracting bill information and
providing it to bill consolidators and consumer service
providers.
"Pitney
Bowes is a key partner for us because of their leading
position in print stream engineering and paper-based
billing, and their unique ability to serve as a ‘bridge’
to customers that have not yet migrated to electronic
billing," says Sean Feeney, Executive Vice President
for CheckFree.
"CheckFree
pioneered the development of electronic bill presentment
and payment," says Karl Schumacher, President of docSense
for Pitney Bowes. "Pitney Bowes pioneered D3, a flexible
platform that provides companies options for seamlessly
transitioning from paper-based to electronic billing.
This alliance provides billers with the best of both
worlds—a broader distribution network for bills based
on Pitney Bowes’ digital statements, bills and other
customer-oriented communications."
Whether
accessing their bill at a consolidation site, or at
the billing company’s own site, consumers of companies
using Pitney Bowes Internet billing benefit because
they no longer need to open and sort through paper bills,
write checks, or stuff and stamp envelopes. And the
risk of lost or delayed payments is significantly reduced
since funds are transferred electronically.
"Internet
billing is on the verge of rapid expansion, fueled by
the proliferation of options for consumers to receive
bills in both summary and detailed fashion and pay through
various models," adds Schumacher.
"D3
is particularly well-suited to this environment," Schumacher
continues, "because it can be implemented either at
the biller’s web site and through integrated electronic
billing and payment providers like CheckFree and their
distribution partners such as portals, banks, brokerages,
credit unions or personal financial management software,
which affords the greatest choice of where consumers
can receive and pay bills."
Easy
Implementation a Key Advantage for Billers
"We expect a significant advantage will accrue to businesses
that are able to implement Internet billing with a minimum
of disruption to their existing paper-based billing
operations," continues Schumacher. "Our D3 solution
helps meet this critical need because it is easily integrated
with existing processes, requires only one vendor relationship
for billers to manage, and features fully integrated
and simplified reporting and remittance processing across
all distribution channels."
Additionally,
D3’s ability to custom-tailor electronic statements
with one-to-one messages serves to "strengthen the entire
customer relationship by transforming the electronic
statement into a focused, interactive dialog with consumers,"
according to Schumacher.
"We’re
excited about the potential for the Pitney Bowes relationship
with CheckFree," adds Shirley Dion, Senior Manager,
Client Fulfillment for United Illuminating, a Connecticut-based
electric utility that utilizes Pitney Bowes D3 technology
for Internet billing. "It means our customers will now
have the added convenience of using either our web site,
or the capabilities of CheckFree, as a way to view and
pay their United Illuminating bills—all without any
extra effort on our part."
"This
agreement helps underscore the comprehensive nature
of the Pitney Bowes D3 platform for rendering, distributing,
tracking and processing bills and their resulting payments
electronically, as well as the immense flexibility it
offers for implementing the solution in a variety of
operational modes quickly, easily and with a minimum
of disruption to existing paper-based statement rendering
operations," adds Jeetu Patel, Vice President of Research
for Doculabs, an independent industry analyst firm based
in Chicago.
About
CheckFree
CheckFree Corporation (www.checkfree.com),
is the leading provider of financial electronic commerce
services and products. Founded as an electronic payments
processor in 1981, CheckFree launched the first fully
integrated electronic billing and payment solution,
CheckFree E-Billsm, in March of 1997. Today, CheckFree
services enable three million consumers to receive and
pay bills over the Internet or electronically. The Company
has multi-year contracts with 89 of the nation’s top
billers to provide online billing and payment through
its network of partnerships with more than 100 consumer
service providers (CSPs), including banks, brokerage
firms, Internet portals and content sites, and personal
financial management (PFM) software. CheckFree’s Investment
Services division provides a range of investment management
services to help more than 255 institutions provide
portfolio management and reporting services to their
clients. CheckFree clients manage over 820,000 portfolios
totaling more than $480 billion in assets. Software
and services provided by CheckFree’s Compliance and
Financial Service division is used to process more than
two-thirds of the nation’s six billion Automated Clearing
House (ACH) payments. In addition, nearly 400 banks
and businesses use reconciliation products and services
the division provides.
About
Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes Inc. is a $4.4 billion provider of informed
mail and message management. The Pitney Bowes Production
Mail and Document Factory Solutions Division is a leading
provider of hardware, software, professional services
and systems integration which enable high-volume mailers
to create, manage and deliver highly personalized customer
documents via hard copy, the Internet and other electronic
channels. The world’s leading 2000 enterprises use Pitney
Bowes’ hardware and software solutions to produce documents
with more impact so they can speed payment and accelerate
cash flow, increase sales via highly targeted one-to-one
marketing programs and bolster customer satisfaction
by promptly delivering a document via the customer’s
media preference. For more information visit www.pitneybowes.com.
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