More than two-thirds of Bank of America's Internet banking customers would elect to stop receiving paper bills in favour of their electronic counterparts, according to a recent poll.
Of more than 1000 California online banking customers surveyed by BofA, eighty-eight per cent of those who expressed an interest in online bill presentment said they wanted to receive their telephone bills electronically. Other utility bills - such as cable, water and garbage - ranked a close second with 87%; followed by gas and electric bills at 86%.
Other key findings from the survey include:
* approximately three-quarters of those interested in receiving e-bills want credit card and insurance bills presented online; about two-thirds want to receive personal and mortgage loan statements online;
* top reasons cited by survey participants for their interest in EBP service include: don't need stamps/envelopes (16%), convenient/time saving (15%), and easy to use (15%);
* customer awareness of EBP service is extremely high - more than 90% of those surveyed reported that they knew about the service.
Nearly 850,000 Bank of America customers have signed up for electronic billing and payment (EBP), reports the bank, and the total dollar value of payments processed grew 36% last year. In March 2001, a record 3.6 million electronic bill payments were made, totaling $1.2 billion. The BofA service is provided in conjunction with CheckFree.
Bank of America and Checkfree have promised to spend $45 million over the next two years on marketing EBP services to consumers, including a mix of radio, newspaper and outdoor ads.
A recent report by Jupiter Research forecasts that EBP adoption will take off quickly in 2001, doubling in volume in the next two years. By 2005, the firm predicts, more than 40 million households will view and pay their bills online.