Fiserv, which had acquired CheckFree, the market-leading electronic billing and payment pioneer in 2007, achieved leadership in electronic bill payment by researching and understanding not only biller and financial intermediaries but also end users who paid their bills (see Exhibit 1 for an illustration of Fiserv and its relationships which direct and indirect customers). Electronic bill payment was now gaining wider acceptant, with nearly 70 percent of online households using it as their primary mode of paying bills. But with less than 20 percent of consumers regularly using e-billing technology to view their bills, Black was mulling over the opportunities and challenges he faced at the other and of the adoption curve.