Yodlee Announces BillPay Account Accelerator
Yodlee has announced the Yodlee BillPay Account Accelerator, a new service that "removes the hassles of canceling an existing bill pay service and setting up payments all over again with a new bill pay provider." Yodlee also says that the service "frees the 40+ million online bill payers to choose the service that’s best for them, and enables financial providers with differentiated bill pay services to capture a greater share of the fast growing bill pay market."
"This is the only service of its kind to make switching bill pay providers easy," said Peter Hazlehurst, senior vice president of product development at Yodlee. "We believe that Yodlee BillPay Account Accelerator is an essential component for all financial institutions aiming to increase the effectiveness of online account openings and drive greater usage and adoption of existing bill pay services. Where consumers pay their bills is their 'primary relationship'. We want to help financial institutions make it easier for consumers to pay bills with them."Editor's note: Wasn't the primary rationale for bankers to give away bill payment services justified by the difficulty, once setup, for consumers to move their accounts to another institution? Yodlee seems set on changing that by significantly reducing the difficulty of moving accounts. This feels like an offering that could hurt the major bank online bill payment leaders by helping make it easier for new entrants to gain customers.Yodlee BillPay Account Accelerator uses patented technology to “read” all the configuration settings of an existing bill pay service. This information includes: all payee information (electronic and paper), scheduled and recurring payments, and e-bill configuration.
A simple wizard then guides a consumer through the completion of the payee set-up process at the new bill pay service, auto-filling all available biller information and payment profiles. Yodlee BillPay Account Accelerator enables scheduled and recurring bill payments and optionally cancels the consumer from the existing service.
"Our research indicates that, by 2010, 13% of checking accounts will be opened online in the United States, up from 3% in 2006," says Gwenn Bezard, research director at Aite Group. "Tools such as such as Yodlee BillPay Account Accelerator will be instrumental in helping banks attract more customers online and streamline the onboarding process."
Yodlee BillPay Account Accelerator will be available for financial institutions in Q1/2007 with pilot projects scheduled for Q4/2006.
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