ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Oct. 27, 1999 — Marking a significant step in its global growth plans, TransPoint today announced it has signed a contract to help develop and implement an electronic bill payment and presentment (EBPP) service for the Australian Postal Corp., which serves more than 18 million Australians. The EBPP service, the most comprehensive of its kind in Australia, will allow Australia Post’s customers to receive and pay bills electronically through the Internet by accessing the postal service’s Web site. The announcement was made today in Sydney.
Australia Post will begin testing the EBPP service with a limited number of billing companies and customers as early as the second quarter of 2000. Plans call for the service to be available to the Australian public in the second half of 2000.
Much like TransPoint, Australia Post will act as a consolidator, allowing consumers to pay their bills at its Web site ( http://www.auspost.com.au/ ) while also offering its processing services to financial institutions and portals.
“We are extremely pleased to be working with Australia Post to bring e-billing to Australia. It is making a very important move, and we applaud it for its innovation and vision,”
said Lewis Levin, president and CEO of TransPoint.
“This announcement demonstrates the flexibility of our EBPP technology, because not only is the system being implemented in Australia’s postal environment, but it has also been implemented in a banking environment in Canada.”
“Australia Post is embracing the future with the development of its new electronic bill payment service, and we are very fortunate to have TransPoint’s technology leadership and expertise to enhance our Internet services,”
said Graeme John, managing director of Australia Post.
“This year marks Australia Post’s 190th year, and we have a track record for successfully continuing to meet the communication needs of our community. The development of EBPP is yet another example of this.”
John added that Australia Post’s EBPP service will extend and complement its existing multichannel bill payment network (over-the-counter paying, telephone bill payment and mailing) and provide customers with greater flexibility and choice in paying their bills.
“This agreement builds on our leadership in the United States and Canada and will accelerate adoption of the Internet in Australia,”
said Warren Dent, senior vice president of Business Development for TransPoint.
“E-billing is a win-win for everyone. Consumers will enjoy the convenience of paying their bills online, Australia Post will attract new customers and add a new dimension of service for its existing over-the-counter customers, and billing companies will enhance their customer relationships with new interactive marketing and customer-service capabilities.”
Through the TransPoint-driven EBPP service, Australia Post will be able to send notification of pending bills via e-mail to its customers. Customers can check their bills by accessing Australia Post’s Web site and logging on to the bill payment section with their user ID and password. They can then choose to pay the bill immediately or at a future date and select whether to pay by credit card or bank debit.
Other features of Australia Post’s EBPP service include the ability of Australia Post’s customers to view their billing detail and transaction history; the ability of customers to submit billing questions directly, via e-mail, to the billing company, which will then respond through the Australia Post payment site; and the ability of billing companies to feature hot links to the Australia Post Web site, providing further customer convenience and speed in managing and handling bill payments.
Australia Post estimates it will have half a million customers paying approximately 20 million bills through EBPP within three years of launching the new service. In the United States, Jupiter Communications estimates that the number of consumer bills delivered online will reach 130 million this year. It predicts that by 2003, U.S. households will receive 2 trillion recurring monthly bills electronically.
In addition to Australia, TransPoint has entered Canada this year. On Oct. 1, TransPoint’s technology was at the center of an EBPP pilot conducted by E-route Inc., a bill presentment consortium of Canada’s largest financial institutions, in which BCE Emergis was used for processing capabilities. BCE Emergis is a leading provider of e-commerce solutions to the Canadian financial services industry.
About TransPoint
TransPoint, established in June 1997, is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and First Data Corp. TransPoint is a leader in the emerging Internet bill delivery and payment industry with a completely new, seamless e-bills service built from the ground up. The TransPoint TM system uses innovative technology and integrates easily with billers’ and banks’ existing payment systems. Launched commercially in April 1999, the TransPoint service allows consumers to view and pay their bills at multiple Internet locations, including the MSN.com TM MoneyCentral TM online personal finance service and directly through the TransPoint Web site. TransPoint e-bills are also scheduled to be available at the Web sites of many leading financial institutions in the coming months. TransPoint is based in Englewood, Colo. More information about e-bills is available at http://www.transpoint.com/ .
TransPoint is an exclusive U.S. trademark of TransPoint LLC. Microsoft, MSN.com and MoneyCentral are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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