Andersen, edocs form bill pay partnership

DALLAS and NATICK, Mass. - Partnerships are, and have been for the last five years or so, the name of the game in the bill pay industry. Rivals Checkfree, Transpoint, edocs and others have been trying to outdo each other in forming strategic partnerships that will bring more bill pay customers into their pipeline. Andersen Consulting, one of the world's largest IT and management consulting firms, and edocs, Inc. have formed an electronic bill payment and presentment partnership. Under the alliance, Andersen Consulting will offer electronic bill payment and presentment solutions based on edocs' BillDirect product suite. The market for electronic bill payments is expected to continue to grow. The Giga Information Group predicts that approximately 743 million bills will be presented and paid electronically this year. The Meta Group anticipates that 90% of the 500 largest billers will offer bills on their own Web sites by 2003. Dale Raaen, a Partner in Andersen Consulting's Communications/High Tech Global Market Unit, said while financials may not consider bill pay/presentment as a revenue generator, there's an opportunity there. He said financials can sell goods, services and advertising space on their e-bills and Web sites "Effective EBPP requires the ability to display the bill on a company's own Web site, while still being able to send summary bill data to a wide variety of sites more readily accessed by consumers, such as portals or bank Web sites," said Doug Coons, Managing Partner of Customer Relationship Management for Andersen Consulting's Global Utilities Practice Coons said.