CheckFree i-Solutions Broadens Biller Options with
New Software and Hosting Offerings
--New CheckFree i-Series SelectTM software and hosting packages deliver
economy and rapid implementation paths --
ATLANTA - (July 16, 2001)- CheckFree i-Solutions, the leading provider of
interactive e-billing and e-statement applications and part of CheckFree
Corporation (NASDAQ: CKFR), today announced new packaged software and
hosting options for billers. The new offerings speed implementations by
providing "out of the box" capabilities for delivering bills and statements
over the Internet, and give billers flexible alternatives for running and
maintaining those applications.
The choices come as options to the CheckFree i-Series 4.0 family of
software solutions. Companies desiring quick-to-market, and easy to
implement packaged alternatives can now choose the following:
CheckFree i-Series Select
i-Series Select delivers pre-packaged, industry-specific software based
on best practices for electronic bill creation, distribution and payment
for companies that want to deploy a biller direct solution for delivery
of e-bills through its site and/or a distributed solution for bill
delivery through nearly 300 Web sites run by financial institutions,
brokerage firms and Internet portals served by CheckFree's distribution
network. Tailored packages for the financial services,
telecommunications, insurance and utility industries enable quick,
lower-cost implementations of the most commonly required functionality
for e-bills and e-statements. Select versions are crafted for companies
that do not need to integrate business-to-business billing functions,
and that do not need to build highly tailored features. Implementations
can be completed as quickly as 90 days, and license fees are as low as
$200,000 for the base software system and $50,000 to $150,000 for
industry-specific solution packs.
By comparison, standard i-Series 4.0 enables companies to integrate
business-to-business and business-to-consumer bills and statements,
distribute bills through CheckFree's network, deploy more customized
biller direct sites, and enable CheckFree guaranteed payments, all from
a single platform. Software license fees start at $400,000.
Hosting Options
Regardless of whether a customer chooses a standard or Select version,
CheckFree now offers software hosting options. This enables companies
that want the control and flexibility derived from owning the software,
but do not choose to commit their own IT resources to manage the
implementation and maintain the application, to deploy a solution
quickly and cost-effectively. Implementations for simple deployments can
be as short as 30 days.
Available hosting options include:
Distribution - The Distribution option allows billers to outsource
e-bill creation and bill detail hosting to CheckFree. Bills can be
distributed to any endpoint in CheckFree's broad distribution network,
including banks, brokerages, credit unions, personal financial
management software and Internet portals. CheckFree currently hosts
bills and statements for more than 50 companies.
Biller Direct - In addition to having bills distributed through
CheckFree's network, a biller can arrange for CheckFree to host the
application that enables bills and statements to be viewed and paid at
the biller's branded site.
ASP Software Hosting - This software ownership option enables billers to
purchase software and have it hosted by CheckFree with more robust
services. These include:
(1) dedicated software;
(2) expanded biller Web-site capabilities, including Market Direct,
the leading 1-to-1 EBP marketing tool; and
(3) a simple transition path for those billers that want to launch an
e-billing or e-statement offering in a simple, fully outsourced model,
but then later migrate to an in-house solution.
Hosting charges range from $2,500 per month to $15,000 per month
depending on application complexity.
CheckFree plans to offer all of these hosting options to Consumer Service
Providers such as financial institutions that want to provide e-billing and
payment capabilities to their corporate customers.
Industry-Focus and Streamlined Design to Drive Deployment
CheckFree i-Solutions designed these new options based on market research
and direct input from billers.
"Billers are telling us that they want to get in market with e-billing and
e-statement solutions more quickly, and indicated that pre-packaged
features that are specifically designed for how their industries handle
bills and statements would be a catalyst for deployment," said Tom
Stampiglia, president of CheckFree i-Solutions.
"With competition for IT resources getting tighter, many companies are
looking to outsourced ASP solutions to have the flexibility that comes with
owning the software, without having to run and maintain it. This business
need cuts across industries and company sizes, so we decided to offer
hosting for both our standard and Select i-Series versions. Finally, our
research showed that many smaller companies want to outsource e-billing and
e-statement applications completely, with the confidence that they can make
a decision to purchase software and run it themselves further down the
road. CheckFree has the resources to support the needs of these billers as
they progress from simple, no-frills outsourced deployments to more
sophisticated solutions that require software ownership, such as tight
one-to-one marketing integration, Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
integration and customer self-service capabilities," Stampiglia added.
Market research from GartnerGroup indicates that 80 percent of all
business-to-consumer bills are tied to four industries: financial services,
utilities, telecommunications and insurance. Industry-specific software
modules available in the Select family focus on these industries:
i-Insurance Select
Insurance Premium Notice
Policy Declaration Page Statement
Policy and Annuity Statements
i-Banker Select
Credit Card Bills
Loan Statements
Corporate/Retail Direct Deposit Account Statement
i-Utility Select
Power Bills
i-Telco Select
Local, long distance and wireless bills
CheckFree i-Series Select software, hosted choices for i-Series and
i-Series Select software, and outsourced biller service provider options
from CheckFree i-Solutions all are available immediately.
About CheckFree i-Solutions
As a software group within CheckFree Corporation, CheckFree i-Solutions is
the leading provider of end-to-end business-to-consumer and
business-to-business solutions for e-billing and payment and e-statement
delivery. CheckFree i-Solutions offers CheckFree i-Series and i-Series
Select software for e-bill and e-statement creation, i-Processing services
that include payment and distribution through nearly 300 financial services
sites and customer care, and i-Hosting services that provide full
outsourcing of these solutions. With 245 billers under contract in March,
CheckFree i-Solutions is committed to helping billers, financial services
organizations and biller service providers leverage electronic bills and
statements as interactive conduits to customer relationship management,
marketing and customer self service applications. For more information
about CheckFree i-Solutions, please visit www.checkfree.com/i-solutions.
About CheckFree
CheckFree (NASDAQ: CKFR) is the leading provider of financial electronic
commerce services and products. Founded in 1981 and celebrating its 20th
year in e-commerce, CheckFree launched the first fully integrated
electronic billing and payment solution in 1997. As of March 31, 2001,
CheckFree enabled 4.8 million consumers to receive and pay bills
electronically. The company has multi-year contracts with 245 of the
nation's top billers to provide online billing and payment through about
300 financial services organizations, including banks, brokerage firms,
Internet portals and content sites and personal financial management (PFM)
software. CheckFree Software Services division provides solutions that are
used to process more than two-thirds of the nation's six billion Automated
Clearing House payments, and reconciliation and compliance products and
services to 400 banks and businesses. CheckFree Investment Services
provides a broad range of investment management services to thousands of
financial institutions nationwide. The division's clients manage more than
1,000,000 portfolios totaling more than $500 billion in assets. For more
information visit www.checkfree.com.
Certain of the Company's statements in this press release are not purely
historical, and as such are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning
of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include
statements regarding management's intentions, plans, beliefs, expectations
or projections of the future. Forward-looking statements involve risks and
uncertainties, including without limitation, the various risks inherent in
the Company's business, and other risks and uncertainties detailed from
time to time in the Company's periodic reports filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission, including the Company's Form 10-K for the year
ended June 30, 2000 (filed September 26, 2000), Form 10-Q for the quarter
ended September 30, 2000 (filed November 14, 2000), and Form 10-Q for the
quarter ended December 31, 2000 (filed February 13, 2001); and Form 10-Q
for the quarter ended March 31, 2001(filed May 11, 2001). One or more of
these factors have affected, and could in the future affect, the Company's
business and financial results in future periods, and could cause actual
results to differ materially from plans and projections. There can be no
assurance that the forward-looking statements made in this document will
prove to be accurate, and issuance of such forward-looking statements
should not be regarded as a representation by the Company, or any other
person, that the objectives and plans of the Company will be achieved. All
forward-looking statements made in this press release are based on
information presently available to management, and the Company assumes no
obligation to update any forward-looking statements. |
