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Web Bill-Payment System Debuts

CheckFree%squots site also lets users collect online bills.

By Brian McWilliams, PCWorld   

CheckFree vice president Matt Lewis said CheckFree E-Bill lets Internet users receive and pay bills electronically.

%dquotWhat the customer sees in a single site is an integrated list of all of his or her bills, presented in full color exactly the way they appear in paper form,%dquot Lewis said.

%dquotThere are a series of screens; the initial one is a list of all the bills that you receive electronically and the opportunity to pay them without looking at any more detail other than the biller and the dollar amount, and the opportunity to file them--all from that screen.%dquot

Alternatively, clicking on an individual bill brings up all the information associated with the transaction. %dquotSo it%squots a very simple point-and-click, one- or two-step process to...receive, pay, and file your bills,%dquot Lewis said.

CheckFree is marketing E-Bill at financial institutions, which would offer it as a service to their customers. Two major banks--one on the West Coast and one in the East--will begin offering E-Bill on their sites in the coming months, Lewis said.

Because the service offers billing companies savings of up to 33 percent over paper invoices, Lewis said he expects utilities, phone companies, and others to push the service to their customers.

The next versions of Microsoft Money and Intuit Quicken personal finance packages are expected to support direct connections to CheckFree%squots E-Bill service.

A demonstration is available at CheckFree%squots Web site.