In August 2007 Fiserv entered into an agreement to acquire CheckFree is an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $4.4 billion.
By 2009 electronic bill payment was gaining wider acceptance, with penetration driven by convenience over traditional payment method, saving on postage, and improved perceptions of payment security (see Exhibit 2 on page 100 for adoption rates) Electronic bill payment was now so pervasive and advanced that most consumers could use their bank’s Web site to pay anyone, including individuals, electronically.
E-BILLING : OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
E-bills are electronic versions of paper bills sent to consumers by billers. Billers offering e-billing services included utility companies, cable/satellite TV providers, and financial services firms. E-bills contained the same information as paper bills and offered the same due date. Fiserv developed the technology to aloe consumers to receive and view e-bills at a biller’s Web site.
Initial feedback from billers reassured Black that they were strongly in favor of converting their consumers from receiving paper bill to receiving e-bill. This enthusiasm was driven in great part by the significant financial saving offered by e-billing. Billers sent monthly bills to consumers. Processing and sending each of these paper bill cost an average of $1.25 per bill, and billers saved up to 45 percent per bill for consumers who no longer received the paper bill. Furthermore, a comparison of sample consumers who received paper bill versus a similar sample of consumers who used e-billing showed that the latter made 10 to 20 percent fewer calls to customer service, thank mainly to the reduction of payment claims cause by human error in submitting and processing transactions. This created additional annual saving of $2 to $4 per consumer for billers, regardless of whether the e-bill consumer was still receiving paper bills.
Billers also saw e-billing as an opportunity to enhance their environmental practices. One energy company reported that, after converting 130,000 consumers to e-billing, it was able to save 31 tons of paper (the equivalent of 753 trees). Thanks to a reduction in production and delivery cost, e-billing also led to considerable water saving and greenhouse gas reductions.
Billers were also interested in the possibility that e-billing might increase consumer satisfaction. Initial data showed that consumer receiving e-bill were extremely satisfied with the service; this might lead to greater satisfaction with the biller as well as a lower likelihood of defection. Also, because identity thieves often got their information from materials taken from mailboxes and trash receptacles, e-bill consumer enjoyed greater security than consumers who received (and had to dispose of) paper bills.
Recognizing these many benefits, a majority of billers not only offered e-billing to their consumers but also provided it at no charge. Nonetheless, although consumers who tried e-billing expressed high satisfaction with the service, less than 20 percent of online consumers use e-billing as their primary way of viewing bills. Black wondered what was holding up the adaption process.
To better understand consumer perceptions of e-billing, Black asked Johnston to commission several primary consumer research studies. Just ask Black and Johnston had used market research to help banks target key segments and effectively position electronic bill payment, they hoped to use research to generate recommendations for billers to convert paper bill-receiving consumers to satisfied and user of e-bills.