Electronic Bill Payment

An electronic bill-presentment and ?payment system that uses the automated clearing house network picked up some momentum recently with the addition of a second participating bank to its pilot program and could gain more as processors serving thousands of banks start linking to the system. Dollar Bank, a Pittsburgh-based thrift, …

The rising popularity of so-called rich-content files is providing cybercriminals a fertile opportunity to spread malicious software that lets them steal passwords, PINs, and other sensitive information on the Internet, according to a report released on Tuesday. Whereas before viruses, Trojans, and other such malware tended to be found on …

Yet another bill-payment study is out, and this one not surprisingly predicts electronic channels will continue displacing mail and other forms of manual payment. More surprising is how soon electronic payments will surpass physical forms of payment: next year, according to Aite Group LLC. Aite forecasts consumers will make 10.2 …

A new study by Javelin Strategy and Research has a bit of good news about last-minute, or expedited, bill payments and about another hot topic, mobile payments. Some 45% of the consumer group Javelin calls “mobile bankers” make an expedited payment at least once a month compared with only 30% …

After years of torrid growth, the automated clearing house's electronic-check code for lockbox payments has seen its expansion slow almost to a halt. The second-quarter numbers in the accounts-receivable conversion (ARC) standard entry class (SEC) could be just a blip, or they may reflect a permanent shift toward non-paper bill …

Although processor Fiserv Inc. dived in to mobile banking and payments head first on Tuesday with its announcement that it would offer mobile services through three channels on one platform, it will be some time before mobile point-of-sale payments become available on the new product. Dubbed Fiserv Mobile Money, the …

More people than ever are paying bills electronically, but banks have few ways of making money from that trend, according to separate research reports out this week. The latest consumer survey from bill-pay technology provider CheckFree, a unit of bank processor Fiserv Inc., estimates that 63.1 million Internet-using households pay …

Both biller Web sites and bank or so-called consolidator sites are gaining market share, but biller sites are growing faster, according to recent research. Sites maintained by billers will account for 13% of all consumer bill payments this year, up from 11% in 2007. Consolidator sites, meanwhile, will handle 11% …

Hoping to cut its paper-bill costs, AT&T Inc. has quietly made electronic bill payment available to its AT&T Mobility mobile-device customers that have deposit accounts with the more than 3,000 financial institutions that use the e-bill services of bank processor Fiserv Inc.'s CheckFree subsidiary. AT&T Mobility, formerly Cingular Wireless, and …

Second-quarter earnings reports from Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. show strong online-banking growth at both giant institutions. BofA also reported today that its base of active bill-payment accounts is up nearly 15% from mid-2007. But subjectivity could be an element in the numbers as banks try …