There were two versions of the Consolidator Model:
• Thin Client Model: Multiple bills were provided to consumers in one location in summary form only, and the consumer could go to the particular biller’s Web site to get more information. This was CheckFree’s initial model, and American Express was an early adopter of this model.
• Thick Client Model: The CSP presented multiple electronic bills to consumers at one location in complete detail, including all the data available on the paper statements.
Some billers, like AT&T, with more than 70 million customers, preferred to use multiple billing
channels, including their own billing sites. AT&T wanted to use EBPP to provide its customers
better account information (for example, allowing customers to click on phone numbers they
didn’t recognize to see, through a database, whom they had called), or special offers. Doug
Coons, managing partner in Andersen Consulting’s Global Utilities Practice, commented:
“Effective EBPP requires the ability to display the bill on a company’s own Web site, while still
being able to send summary data to a wide variety of sites more readily accessed by consumers,
such as portals or bank Web sites.”