LowerMyBills Selects Yodlee BillDirect

LowerMyBills.com has selected Yodlees BillDirect to power BillPay Plus, a free Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) service that provides consolidated online bill payment for consumers. BillDirect, which also powers AOL Bill Pay, is the only EBPP solution that leverages the convenience of the biller direct model for bill payment with the utility of consolidated bill presentment plus value-added alerts, charting and management tools for a comprehensive, easy-to-use bill pay and financial planning tool. LowerMyBills.com is a free online service for consumers to compare the lowest rates on monthly bills, including credit card interest rates, mortgage rates and auto loans for over 300 service providers. The addition of online bill pay substantially expands the value proposition for consumers as more and more people are leveraging the convenience of the Internet to view, manage, and pay bills. Online bill payment has become one of the fastest growing applications on the Internet. In fact, according to a January 2004 Gartner Group report, by 2007, 65 million U.S. adults will view their bills online. Today, most consumers view and pay their bills directly at their billers Web sites. The reason for this trend is the user-friendly functionality of the biller Web sites, including same day payment, acceptance of credit cards and other alternative payment options, immediate confirmation of payment, bill presentment, and free payment. What becomes cumbersome to users, however, is the need to visit ten or more websites each month and an inability to centrally manage and track their bills in one place. BillDirect is the first solution to enable users to easily view, manage, and consolidate all their online bills from one Web site while providing deep links to the biller sites for payment. BillDirect leverages Yodlees core iFinity aggregation platform -- which has the unique ability to pull individual account data from over 8,000 sources, including billers, brokerages, banks, credit card issuers, insurance providers, lenders, travel agents, email providers, and more. This enables Yodlee to present and pay bills for more than 2,700 billers and offer value-added capabilities like historical charting and transaction-level alerts to help users proactively manage how theyre accruing expenses at their billers throughout the month. Benefits of BillDirect for Financial Service Providers: -- Superior Consumer Product Offering -- BillDirect give consumers more convenience, flexibility and choice, as well as industry leading bill presentment (more than 2,700 bills presented) and unparalleled account management capabilities -- Cost Savings -- BillDirect leverages the efficiencies of the Biller Direct model to offer institutions a significant cost advantage -- almost 4:1 versus alternative solutions -- for a more robust EBPP offering -- New Revenue Opportunities -- BillDirect can drive new revenue opportunities for financial service providers through interchange fees for credit and debit card payments Benefits of BillDirect for Consumers: Only BillDirect offers consumers the benefits of both the Bill Direct site functionality and convenience of bill consolidation and management. End user benefits include: -- Same day payments for improved cash management and avoidance of late payments -- Ability to maximize card loyalty plans -- Convenience of payment consolidation -- Bill presentment and account management, including automatic charting, expense reporting, and personalized alert capabilities, all with no manual input required