CheckFrees Web 4.0 Released

With CheckFree Web 4.0, financial services organizations can provide the best consumer experience available, and make it easy for mainstream consumers who try electronic billing and payment to move from enrollment to bill set-up, to scheduling and checking status of payments. In many cases, consumers can elect to schedule same day and next day payments increasing the value of the service with greater payment flexibility. The new functionality greatly improves a customers ability to manage personal finances online, offering greater control, convenience and time-saving benefits. Customers of financial institutions offering CheckFree Web 4.0 will immediately notice a more consumer-friendly user interface that will help strengthen adoption rates. With a single screen, the application consolidates access to the most frequently used features, such as making payments, setting up and managing e-Bills, and viewing payment history. The new Single-Point Bill Management center improves site navigation and guides customers through all bill viewing, payment and status monitoring activities. CheckFree Web 4.0 significantly streamlines the entire user experience, enabling more intuitive, easier access to rich features with significantly fewer clicks. The new platform is the result of extensive client and consumer research, usability testing and development investments, from which CheckFree consumer services providers benefit. A July 2003 consumer survey with Vividence, which compared version 3.2 of the CheckFree service to an early version of CheckFree Web 4.0, found that the consumer experience dramatically improved across all key performance metrics. These metrics included a consumers likelihood to return to the service, overall satisfaction, overall organization, expectations met, site speed, and likelihood to recommend. In addition, the customer acquisition metric improved by almost 100 percent from version 3.2 to the early version of CheckFree Web 4.0. Faster Payment Processing and Enhanced E-Mail Capabilities CheckFrees consumer research found that users instinctively want balances updated, and payments made and credited faster. CheckFree offers the highest electronic rate in the industry - more than 75 percent of payments are sent electronically from the consumers bank to the merchant - which enhances efficiency, accuracy and security. Due to this extensive network of merchant relationships and payment routing options, CheckFree Web 4.0 enables consumers to use a dynamic calendar to view and choose earliest available payment dates, which may be the same day or next day, to schedule payments. The status of each payment is updated when the remittance information is sent, and again when the merchant reports that the payment has been processed and posted. Other payment processing enhancements include advanced account transfer capabilities that enable consumers to schedule funds transfers from one account to another, either within the same financial institution or from one institution to another. Consumers can now also use the application to send reminders to themselves about when bills are due, for a CheckFree e-Bill SM but also for a pay anyone smaller merchant bill, such as a day care provider. Through a secure link, they can then schedule payment of a specific bill from within the reminder e-mail. This provides a greater level of control and assurance that the consumer has done everything possible to manage their money by scheduling bills to be paid on time. In addition, consumers are protected by the CheckFree Guarantee against liability for fraud, and late fees or interest charges on the payment amount if the payment was scheduled to arrive on time. Consumers can also receive past due notices, payment posting confirmations and e-Bills sent directly to their e-mail inbox. Tighter Online Banking Integration and Improved Analytic Tools