From...

September 10, 1999
Web posted at: 11:10 a.m. EDT (1510 GMT)

by Alexandra Krasne

(IDG) -- It used to be, if you wanted to pay a bill, you had to pull out your checkbook, write a check, put it in an envelope, address it, put a stamp on it, trudge wearily to a mailbox, and drop in.

But more and more people are paying their bills online through their banking sites or personal finance software; and now, you also can pay bills from one of the Net's most popular portals. A new service, Bill Pay, is now available from CheckFree through Yahoo's Finance site.

Using the service you can pay bills to anyone. In the unlikely event that a company or person doesn't accept online payments, simply punch in the address, the date the payment is due, and the amount, and CheckFree will cut a check and mail it.

To use the servi ce, you'll need to register for a Yahoo ID and Security Key (which is like a PIN code), then create a list of your bills, payees, and payment dates on CheckFree. You also need to make sure your bank supports online bill-paying.

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Then, you can designate payments as recurring or not. The site remembers most of the details of recurring payments, so usually, you need only enter the new check amount to have an online payment or a check sent to a creditor and a like amount deducted from the bank account you designate. At the end of the month, it shows up on your bank statement.

$50 Liability Limit

What if someone filches your account information and goes on a shopping spree? CheckFree says you're only responsible for $50 and the company will reimburse the rest of your lost money.

Another nice thing is that CheckFree will be responsible for any late-payment charges (up to $50 per transaction), if one of your payments is late. But this only works if the payment is m ade in accordance with the terms and conditions of CheckFree's conditions.

Ken Hobday, vice president of standards at CheckFree, maintains that 128-bit SSL encryption on customer transactions and PGP encryption for company billing transactions makes t he service completely safe.

At the moment, you can get Bill Pay free for a three-month trial. After that, you can choose from two options: a $2 per month and an additional 40 cents payment for an unlimited number of payments or a $7 per month fee for up to 25 payments plus 40 cents for each additional payment.

Yahoo Bill Pay, according to Hobday, is part of a phased launch. The next phase will be a service that will offer more security features and let you receive electronic payments from the phon e company, electric company and other creditors.

This initial offering of Bill Pay will give users features that will be well received, say analysts at Zona Research.

That may be music to Mike Riley, senior producer of Yahoo Finance, who says the company is partnering with CheckFree because of its position in the online bill payment market.

In 1998, CheckFree completed 85 million transactions, amounting to $15 billion, Riley says, and any service offered on Yahoo has to conceivably be able to handle its 65 million subscribers, says Riley.

If online bill pay services catch on, other portals may soon start offering their own electronic versions, and Web users may eventually conduct much if not all of their online business through leading por tals, Zona analysts say.