Aol, Intuit Team Up To Create Online Household Bill Payment Service - Company Business and Marketing

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Nov 29, 1999

Powered By Quicken, New Service Provides Simple Way To Pay Electronic, Hard Copy Bills Online

Leading online service America Online Inc. and Quicken maker Intuit Inc. are joining forces to offer AOL customers an online service for managing household bills. Powered by View and Pay Bills by Quicken, the companies will begin to rollout the service across multiple AOL brands in early 2000.

Under the five-year agreement, Intuit will be the exclusive integrated provider of the bill tracking and payment service to AOL and AOL.COM. The two firms say the new service will give consumers the ability to view, track, and pay all of their bills, whether they are issued electronically or in "hard copy."

The two-track approach distinguishes the AOL/Intuit service from existing services, which allow payment either of only electronic bills or only scanned paper bills, or require consumers to enter payment amounts themselves.

According to a just-released 1999 AOL/Roper Starch Cyberstudy, more than half (55 percent) of online consumers would be interested in paying bills online. Jupiter Research forecasts the number of households will grow to 18 million by 2003, ten times as many as use such services today.

The pact will make AOL's Personal Finance Channel, already the No. 1 financial site in cyberspace, even more popular to consumers as it adds everyday household money management to the financial planning and investment services that the channel provides.

Under the deal, AOL and Intuit will provide utilities, credit card companies, and other billers with a way to present bills to their customers, complete with their brand and logo identity, at whatever level of detail they desire, using state-of-the-art encryption technology.

Consumers can also direct billers who do not provide electronic billing to send paper bills to an Intuit address where they will be scanned into electronic format. A monthly fee, yet to be determined, would be charged for use of the feature.

According to AOL President Bob Pittman, the new offering will "simplify the [bill paying] process by allowing members to receive and pay their bills from one location, and view their billing history to track expenses. With its extensive experience in electronic finance and strong customer focus, Intuit is a great ally for us in this new service."

Adds Bill Campbell, chairman of Intuit, "Teaming with America Online gives us the chance to bring this opportunity to tens of millions of their members and visitors to their portal site, in addition to Quicken.com, where Intuit's electronic bill presentment and payment service debuted [two weeks ago]."

The new service builds on an existing content and commerce alliance between the two companies. Intuit has been the primary source of original programming for the Personal Finance Web Channel on AOL.COM since 1998.