Yodlee Introduces Bill Payment Service

Posted 19 September 2006 @ 09:41 am EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

NEW YORK (AP) - Yodlee Inc., a company known for its online bill payment and account aggregation tools, on Tuesday was announcing a new service aimed at making it easier for consumers to change from one bill paying provider to another.

The Redwood City, Calif., company said it would launch Yodlee BillPay Account Accelerator in coming months to make it easier for consumers to switch bill pay providers without having to set up scheduled payments all over again. The service is to be available for financial institutions in the first quarter of 2007 following pilot projects in the final quarter this year.

Anil Arora, Yodlee president and chief executive, said some consumers hesitate to move their accounts from one financial institution to another or to consolidate their accounts at a single institution because of the hassle involved in reconstructing their bill paying instructions.

"With the accelerator, the consumer needs to provide one or two pieces of information about where online bills are, and we can switch it over in a couple of minutes," he said. It also can, at the consumer's request, cancel the old service. Arora said he expects a key use of the product to be consumers consolidating their bill paying in one place.

"Consumers often have a couple of bills set up here, a couple there, but want to consolidate," he said. "They've told us, 'It's difficult for me to do that.' Now it won't be." Peter Hazlehurst, senior vice president of product development at Yodlee, said in a statement that financial institutions will want to adopt the service to "increase the effectiveness of online account openings and drive greater usage and adoption of existing bill pay services."

Attracting bill pay customers can improve loyalty because "where consumers pay their bills is their primary (banking) relationship." The company believes that as more consumers sign up for basic banking services via the Internet, their program will help speed up the adoption of related services, such as online bill pay. Yodlee said that more than 100 financial institutions and Internet portals offer Yodlee-powered operations.