Fiserv has announced plans for a new personal payments service that it says "will enable individuals to quickly and easily send or receive money person-to-person using their existing online banking relationship. The service will be made available to the more than 3,100 financial institutions in the Fiserv online payment network, linking users with their friends, family, neighbors and colleagues." READ MORE

FIS has announced that it is integrating PayPal's person-to-person (P2P) payment system into the FIS online bill payment application for financial institutions. FIS says that "by integrating paperless P2P functionality into its online bill payment application, FIS empowers banks and credit unions to simultaneously solve for a real consumer need and drive increased transaction activity at the online channel." READ MORE

Fiserv has announced that Biller Direct HV, a hosted solution that integrates electronic billing and payment (EBP) capabilities into company websites, has been enhanced with new delivery and alerting capabilities. New capabilities include a "push e-bill" option that enables the delivery of secure PDF e-bills via e-mail and mobile alerts that notify consumers via their mobile device when a bill has been received. READ MORE

Fiserv has announced that "Walmart has implemented the CheckFreePay service from Fiserv, enabling customers to pay bills in person at all Walmart locations in the United States. Using the CheckFreePay service, customers can pay household bills, such as their utility, mobile phone, auto loan, insurance and credit card bills, at any one of the retailer?s 3,755 domestic locations, including Walmart SuperCenters and Neighborhood Markets." READ MORE

Wells Fargo has announced the nationwide availability of its newest online bill pay feature - allowing customers to make “just in time” online bill payments to merchants, such as utility, auto finance and mortgage companies. According to the bank, the new service helps customers avoid missing payments or making late payments. Wells Fargo has teamed up with Western Union to provide the new same-day service. READ MORE

The number of US households paying bills online will grow from 48 million this year to 63 million by 2014, according to a new report titled "US Electronic Bill Payment And Presentment Forecast, 2009 To 2014" by Forrester Research. A 5.4 percent compound annual growth rate reflects a maturing market where growth rates will shrink in the years ahead, but it also reflects a market that is not yet saturated.

Forrester sees a shift in the online bill payment market as more consumers turn to banks and bill payment consolidators like Yodlee and Corillian because of several factors, including: the convenience of having multiple bills aggregated at a single Web site, the elimination of bill payment fees, and innovative marketing efforts to drive adoption. By 2012, consolidators’ share of the online bill payment market will surpass direct billing by merchants for the first time, according to Forrester. READ MORE

Billeo and NetSpend have announced an online service designed to help consumers pay their bills using their NetSpend cards, giving them access to financial tools that the majority of Americans now enjoy. Under the terms of the agreement, consumers that have a NetSpend card will be able to access a searchable online directory of billers that accept the card. Billeo will also provide a free, downloadable toolbar to help cardholders manage their bills. READ MORE

Terri Bradford, Payments System Research Specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, has published a paper titled "A Backward Glance While Looking Forward" looking at some of the new payments products and technologies introduced over the last 10 years: check conversion, person-to-person payments, account aggregation, and electronic bill presentment and payment,

Western Union, Consumer Portfolio Services, and VeriSign have announced a pilot project to enable CPS customers to trigger their monthly car payment directly from their mobile phone. According to the companies, "unlike mobile payment services that direct the consumer to a website or interactive voice response system (IVR), the new service allows consumers to quickly and easily initiate their payment using their phone's text messaging service based on debit or credit card information entered online." READ MORE

Yodlee has announced the Yodlee PostcardCheck - saying it is "aimed at increasing efficiency and lowering the significant costs associated with paper payments in online bill pay. Nearly two of every ten payments originated online in the U.S. are still processed via paper check. Financial institutions offering online bill pay to their consumers incur per item costs of a single paper payment up to ten times higher than comparable electronic payments. Paper payments are by far the most costly component of any online bill pay system. Yodlee has built a new, proprietary PostcardCheck solution that helps financial institutions immediately lower the cost of single check payments by up to 30%." READ MORE

Billeo has announced the availability of Billeo for the Apple Mac, a browser plug-in that allows users to set up a “one stop shop” transaction center with stored account information, card data, reminders, saved receipts and more. Billeo also said that it has "integrated community learning as part of Billeo’s save receipt feature. With this feature Billeo continuously learns from the community of Billeo users to automatically categorize your web receipts based on the most popular selections other users have made." READ MORE

A new study sponsored by Fiserv has found that "consumers who pay bills online are more profitable and loyal to their financial institution due to their use of online bill pay services. Customers who began using online bill payment during the course of the study delivered 15 to 20 percent more profit to their financial institution when compared to similar customers who did not adopt the online service. Further, customers who paid bills online were 76 percent less likely to churn or leave the financial institution." READ MORE

First Data Corp. has a growing collection of white papers in its Thought Leadership Library covering a wide range of payments-related topics. The latest papers include:

• One-to-One Customer Risk Management by Krista Tedder - Product Owner, Risk Management and Fraud Solutions
• Bill Payment Trends: Major Shifts in Consumer Behavior Require Comprehensive Planning

Fifth Third Processing Solutions has announced a new partnership with eBillme to refer the payment alternative to its merchant processing customers.

Motorola has announced a mobile commerce solution for financial and retail merchandising needs. The solution, consisting of an M-Wallet and back-end management platform, has been deployed by Union Mobile Pay (UMPay), a leading mobile payment company established by China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) and China UnionPay. READ MORE

Yesterday, NCR held an Analyst Day for investors - the presentation slides are available in an SEC filing made by the company.

Online Resources held an Investor Day yesterday - the presentation slides are available online.

MetraTech Corp., a charging, billing, settlement and customer care product provider, has announced that its MetraNet product has been deployed by Microsoft as the billing and partner settlement solution for Microsoft Online Services, Microsoft’s new cloud computing services. READ MORE

Fiserv has announced its CheckFreePay walk-in bill payment service has partnered with PayScan America to utilize PayScan's patented bar code bill payment process to offer "an enhanced retail payment solution that will enable walk-in consumers to pay their household bills quickly and easily at retail checkout lanes and self-service kiosks." READ MORE

Javelin Strategy & Research is announcing a new study titled "2008 Expedited Payments Forecast: Banks Must Add Expedited Payments Now or Lose $5 Billion in Fees to Billers." According to Javelin, "the study finds that financial institutions must incorporate expedited payments now or risk losing $5 billion in fees to third party billers." READ MORE

Billeo has announced the debut of Splendid Search - a new feature that "allows consumers, for the first time, to store, track and search receipts and records of their online transactions." READ MORE

Glenbrook's Bryan Derman and Jim Salters take a fresh look at online bill presentment following a recent announcement by AT&T Mobility that it would begin delivering bills electronically through CheckFree-powered bank bill payment sites.

Offering free online bill payment solutions to retail banking customers will cost the financial services industry $1 billion (USD) by 2010, according to TowerGroup estimates. "This aggregate amount represents spending on the portion of the service that financial services institutions (FSIs) outsource. While financial institutions traditionally accepted this expense as a cost of doing business, the “soft” revenue associated with online bill pay (enhanced customer retention, cross-sell opportunities, reduced call center activity, and higher profitability of online bill payment users) no longer compensates for the “hard” dollars institutions must spend to facilitate it." READ MORE

According to a survey sponsored by CheckFree, "more Americans than ever, an estimated 63.1 million households or three-fourth of those online, are paying their bills online rather than writing paper checks. The 2008 Consumer Banking and Bill Payment Survey, the eighth conducted by CheckFree since 2002, highlights Americans’ growing use of online banking and bill payment services to help manage their personal finances." READ MORE

Metavante has announced an alliance with Connect Software Solutions, an online banking provider for credit unions to bring Metavante’s bill presentment and payment solutions and Connect’s online banking platform together into a fully integrated online banking and bill pay product that will be delivered to the credit union market by Connect. READ MORE

ChargeSmart has reported that payments for automotive loans and leases are the most prominent transaction since the company launched its online service this past July. With a network of more than 4,000 billers, ChargeSmart’s web-based payment application allows consumers with a major credit card to make payments to companies in four different industries, including auto loans and/or leases, home mortgages, education loans and utility companies. READ MORE

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson recently interviewed Murali Subbarao, CEO of Billeo, about the status of the online bill payment marketplace in the US. Read on for her full interview . READ MORE

Yodlee has announced that Yodlee PayToday – Yodlee’s expedited payments solution – is now available as a revenue generating addition to any financial institution’s online banking website. According to Yodlee, "with Yodlee PayToday, financial institutions can take immediate advantage of the opportunity to generate new fee revenue by offering their customers the convenience of guaranteed, same-day electronic payments to hundreds of national and regional billers across multiple biller categories, including: credit cards, mortgage, auto finance, insurance, utilities, cable and wireless." READ MORE

ChargeSmart has announced the launch of a web-based payment service allowing consumers to pay their mortgage, auto and education loans as well as utility bills using a major credit card. READ MORE

Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank has announced that it has implemented 3D Secure on its BillPay websites. "Better known to the public as “Verified by Visa” and “MasterCard SecureCode”, 3D Secure is designed to protect cardholders against unauthorised use of their debit or credit cards online." READ MORE

WAUSAU Financial Systems and ClairMail have announced an agreement to extend the mobile channel to WAUSAU's remittance processing solutions. According to the two companies, "by integrating ClairMail's Mobile Lockbox technology with its remittance processing managed service, WAUSAU will empower its customers to include payments via mobile phones as part of their receivables processing offering to their clients." READ MORE