USCS International Inc. said its
International Billing Services (IBS) subsidiary entered into a partnership
agreement with NETdelivery, a developer of Electronic Delivery Management (EDM) technology.
Based on an Internet “invited push” model, NETdelivery’s EDM will enable the
automatic delivery of personalized electronic statements to any consumer’s PC, with no action required of the end user.
For consumers, this agreement means they will be able to examine a number of
full-featured, multimedia bills electronically and select easy electronic
payment options. For billers, Rancho Cordova, CA-based IBS’ agreement with
NETdelivery means it now has a one-stop shop for the full range of options for delivering statements to its customer base.
The IBS Electronic Billing Solution, announced in December, offers billers the ability to send electronic bills and statements to their own Web sites, or to leading electronic bill consolidation Web sites. The partnership with
NETdelivery adds a third dimension to this offering, the ability to harness
invited push technology using NETdelivery’s next generation EDM solution.
Currently, consumers wishing to receive and pay bills electronically have two
options; logging on to their service provider’s individual company Web sites to view and pay their account statements, or accessing a statement
consolidator’s Web site where several of their statements are housed.
With NETdelivery’s solution, consumers will install NETdelivery’s client
software on their PCs. The NETdelivery client will automatically log on to the Internet to retrieve bill and statement information directly from billers
who’ve signed on with IBS’ NETdelivery billing solution. The consumer will
then be able to view, analyze, organize and pay their bills without being
logged on to the Net.
Under the terms of the agreement, IBS has licensed NETdelivery’s EDM
technology to process electronic statements in IBS’ data centers. The company
will also have access to the NETdelivery EDM network and will have rights to
distribute NETdelivery’s client software to consumers. Financial terms were
not disclosed.
The companies also entered into a co-marketing agreement, under which IBS will market NETdelivery’s electronic billing solution to its customer base of high-volume billers.
IBS also has made a minority equity investment in NETdelivery and has received a seat on NETdelivery’s board of directors.
