What is electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP)?  With all the concern over the privacy of Internet transactions these days, how does NextBill handle confidential customer information?  What happens if a customer temporarily loses access to their e-mail account or they simply forget to pay their bill?  What have been the chief concerns of businesses, banks and consumers regarding the existing third party electronic bill presentment and payment system?  How does NextBill address these concerns? What is electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP)? Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) is a system of billing that allows a computer to present bills on screen for consumers to see, study and pay. The consumer can view the bill, manage the data for budget planning purposes and authorize the bank to send payment to the biller.   top With all the concern over the privacy of Internet transactions these days, how does NextBill handle confidential customer information? Under the existing third-party system, a customers private billing information is sent to another company, such as CheckFree or TransPoint, for consolidating the bills on a central Web site and handling the transfer of payments. With the NextBill system, the customers bank or merchant maintains full control over the customers private information.    top What happens if a customer temporarily loses access to their e-mail account or they simply forget to pay their bill? In the event a bill remains unpaid the day following its due date, NextBill has a Safety Draft feature that will automatically draft a customers account for the amount due. NextBill is the first EBPP system to offer a solution to this problem.    top What have been the chief concerns of businesses, banks and consumers regarding the existing third party electronic bill presentment and payment system? An enormous concern for merchants and financial institutions is the issue of who has control over the bill. A billing statement is an important opportunity for businesses to communicate with their customers. Once a merchant transfers their billing information to a third party bill processor, this opportunity is lost. For banks, control of the bill in the hands of third-party processors means a lost opportunity for revenue. While the third-party companies use the banks? Web sites as consolidation points for online bills, there is little revenue shared with the banks. Another significant concern is the cost of offering online billing using the third party-processors. Converting an entire billing system internally can cost between $250,000 and $750,000, according to Gartner Group estimates. Ongoing transaction fees charged by third party processors, typically ranging from $.32 to $.50 per transaction, are also an issue. With the online billing model TransPoint and CheckFree have created, businesses are forced to pass through this toll-gate each time they bill a customer. These fees are normally passed along to consumers in the form of monthly service charges. Lack of current consumer participation causes online billing to become a major gamble for businesses and banks. While consumers are slow to pay the monthly fees charged by their banks for online billing until more of their billers participate, companies are slow to take the plunge into online billing without a significant number of consumers signed up for the program. It is a very non-productive cycle. For consumers, privacy and customer service are other core problems with the existing online billing model. A merchants customers do not want their private billing information transferred from one company to another, but that is what is required if a company partners with a third party processor. Also, if a customer experiences technical difficulty with the billing system, it is likely they will not be able to get an answer from their billers customer support department. Instead, they will have to be routed to the support staff of the third party processor.    top How does NextBill address these concerns? With NextBill, businesses and their banks maintain full control over the bill. Since the billing statement is sent as an e-mail attachment, advertising and other forms of communication with their customers can easily be included. For banks, NextBill enables them to offer online billing to their commercial customers as a service bureau, creating a new avenue for revenue generation. Keeping billing processes in-house also resolves consumers concerns over privacy and customer service. It would never be necessary for a participating company to send confidential information to an entity unknown to the customer, and any customer concerns over use of the system can be handled by the merchants or banks customer service department. NextBill is much less expensive, with start-up costs beginning at $35,000 but never approaching the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to partner with a third-party processor. Also, NextBill users are not charged ongoing transaction fees, allowing them to pass these savings along to customers. Brinkman Technologies is philosophically opposed to the concept of raising the costs of the billing cycle by attaching transaction fees to online bill payments. Online billing should be free to the consumer. Rather than requiring consumers and merchants to bank at participating banks, NextBill allows anybody with an e-mail account to pay bills online. Since bills from various vendors are not consolidated at participating banks, merchants and consumers have total freedom to stay with their existing financial institution. All banks are required by the Federal government to have the capability to process ACH transactions, so even a consumer banking with a small community bank can benefit from the convenience of online banking.    top