Thanks to Dave for pointing out in the comments that Voca and CheckFree brought out their joint initiative in UK March 2004.  This presentation (pdf) presented by Carole Melson reviews the details.  This initiative will provide EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment, and Payment).  This provides a digital replica of the bill online, simple one click payment of that bill, and storage of the bill along with record of bills paid.

• A Joint Venture between Voca and CheckFree providing bank-centric Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment consolidation in the UK
• A ‘one-stop shop’ for bill management * The authenticated online bank customer can view, pay and manage bills online and move securely to billers’ sites
• Why now? * APACS study shows e-Banking booming in 2005 * There are 14m personal internet bankers in UK * Our research shows 60% of these would use EBPP
• US, Australian and Scandinavian case studies show EBPP works

Source: PowerPoint Presentation

At the time their plans were to have 2 Banks, and 5 billers.  Based on the Lloyds announcement, they have 2 Banks (HSBC & Lloyds) and a healthy 14 billers.

Relevance to Bankwatch:

From the North American experience, the key is the biller sign up.  Customers interest is luke warm until they can see all their billers in one area – otherwise its a fractured experience.  So its essential to get the key utilities, telco’s, credit cards, lines of credit, aligned up as soon as possible.  I will do another post on the North American experience with EBPP.