BillingZone And KUBRA To Deliver Integrated Electronic Invoice Presentment And Payment Services

Market Wire, 20050229

BillingZone, LLC, a leading B2B electronic invoice presentment and payment (EIPP) consolidator, and KUBRA, the leader in customer communication and relationship management outsource solutions, today announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance. The new partnership offers mutual customers advanced capabilities in the complex financial supply chain environment with respect to the invoice-to-collect and procure-to-pay processes.

The alliance between KUBRA and BillingZone will deliver exceptional value to participating companies with large B2B invoice volume. The partnership channels KUBRA's electronic invoices, statements and credit memos into the BillingZone.com(TM) EIPP consolidated service most preferred by business payers. Billers will enjoy the benefits of an integrated EIPP solution that offers paper-based, EDI, Web-based, and consolidated invoice and payment processes rather than fragmented solutions for presentment and payer consolidation services. The new alliance offers customers access to all types of invoicing and provides consolidation to business payers for the greatest usage and penetration.

"KUBRA recognizes that we need flexible invoice solutions to maximize our reach and meet the needs of billers," said Rick Watkin president and chief executive officer, KUBRA. "The alliance with BillingZone allows us to offer a complete suite of services to billers. We also understand that payer communities have different needs. As a supplier of e-products, we are providing a solution today that is designed for the future so that customers can grow with KUBRA as their one-stop provider. BillingZone is the only consolidator in operation today that can deliver quality EIPP services to KUBRA's customers."

"At BillingZone, we have built the leading consolidator service for B2B EIPP to be open to invoices and payments from the majority of sources and formats," said Eric Smith, president and chief executive officer of BillingZone, LLC. "For KUBRA's customers, this will mean that more of their customers will be able to access, review, and pay their bills electronically. This leads to the robust cost-savings and enhanced customer relationships that KUBRA's customers expect from e-billing. We are pleased to be working with KUBRA to offer this valuable service to their customers."

KUBRA's offering, KUBRA e-invoice(TM), was designed as a straightforward interactive environment for payee and payer process stakeholders in the invoice-to-collect marketplace. It is a complete end-to-end B2B EIPP solution that delivers workflow and dispute handling, interactive customer care, payment processing and personalized marketing with respect to digital invoice creation and delivery. The product's enhanced customer self-care features and its streamlined workflow for receipt, review, dispute, approval and payment of invoices enables billers to simultaneously reduce support costs while providing business customers with greater convenience and improved service.

Under the new alliance with BillingZone, customers using the KUBRA e-invoice(TM) product suite will be offered advanced distribution of electronic presentment and payment services to their associated payer communities through the BillingZone.comTM service. BillingZone recently launched its Open Alliance Program, offering companies an easy, flexible path to link existing software and Web site solutions with an Internet service that offers a broad network of participants. BillingZone consolidates transactional data from multiple invoicing sources into one centralized hub, efficiently distributes invoices to multiple customers through the BillingZone.com Web site, offers a sophisticated set of payables functionality, and provides financial reconciliation back to the suppliers through their existing banking, credit card and settlement relationships.

About KUBRA

KUBRA leads the market in delivering comprehensive customer communication and customer relationship management outsourced solutions. KUBRA has leveraged their expertise in these skill sets to offer various business communities personalized interactive customer communication and management solutions. Since the company's inception in 1992, they have created a multinational corporation that creates value for their customers in the form of enhanced access to new markets, reduced costs and increased profitability.

KUBRA's capabilities in data processing, print production, electronic presentment and delivery and secure payment processing allows them to provide customer communication solutions through any channel and to facilitate the communication program throughout its entire life cycle - from document conception and presentment to customer response and payment. More information on the Company is available on the Internet at www.kubra.com

About BillingZone, LLC

BillingZone, LLC offers a business-to-business electronic invoice presentment and payment service that provides businesses a consolidated model for presenting, receiving and paying invoices on the Internet. The service is expressly designed to meet the needs of corporate billers and payers and provides to payers the convenience of paying multiple bills at one site. BillingZone helps companies streamline the complexity of invoicing and payment processes, realize cost savings by eliminating paper and manual processes, and speeds up the communication between companies and their customers or suppliers. BillingZone, LLC is a joint venture of two industry leaders, PNC Bank, N.A., a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC), and Perot Systems Corporation (NYSE: PER). Please contact BillingZone, LLC at (412) 705-3000 or via e-mail at info@billingzone.com. Additional information is available on the company's web site at www.billingzone.com.