Yodlee Launches Bill Pay with a Twist ... Card Payments

"Enabling consumers to pay bills via credit and debit cards through the online banking application brings together a very desirable channel and a very desirable payment method," said Gwenn Bezard, research director at AITE Group. "For institutions, it puts fee income back on the online banking map."

Yodlee BillPay uniquely offers the benefits of both the consolidated bill pay model (single console for managing all bills) and the biller direct model (flexible payment instruments, same-day credit, direct confirmation of payment from biller) to create a richer and more user-friendly bill pay experience. And, because consumers can use credit cards for many bill payments, financial institutions offering the bill pay service can earn interchange revenue, making bill pay a profitable venture for the first time. Yodlee BillPay also lowers the total cost of ownership for bill pay solutions by leveraging the payments infrastructure at biller sites.

"With 40+ million households paying bills online -- and growing -- it's clear that consumers want a simple, secure and complete way to take control of their finances," said Anil Arora, president and CEO of Yodlee. "Our approach gives consumers the convenience they want, while giving financial institutions an opportunity to earn $40 per user per year in interchange revenue."

Key Features of Yodlee BillPay:

• e-Bill Presentment and Payment - for over 2,600 merchants
• Flexible Payment Options - including ability to pay bills with a money management account, checking account or with a credit or debit card
• Same Day Payments - facilitating the "Panic Payment" for many time-sensitive bills for select billers
• One-click Payments - ability to pay multiple billers at once
• Automated Payments - ability to easily schedule recurring payments or set up AutoPay with individual billers
• Full Payment History - data is stored and available, for life!
• Bill Pay Alerts - provide notifications on bill receipt or due date
• Comprehensive Payee Support - including payments via paper check to offline merchants or personal payees

Payments are stored in Yodlee's Payment Warehouse and routed to the appropriate end points, including a proprietary Direct Payment engine, which facilitates payments directly at biller websites or via connections to third party payment service providers. Yodlee allows payments to be routed to the channel that offers the lowest cost and/or highest profit, as well as providing the fastest fulfillment of payment requests.