Time Warner Cable serves up EBPP with Billserv

(Telephony) Billserv was named Time Warner Cable’s preferred electronic billing provider today, adding to the number of large billers that Billserv has signed over the last several months, which include AT&T, Chevron and Reliant Energy.

“Time Warner is one of the premier cable providers in the country and that provides tremendous technological opportunities for its consumer set,” said Michael Long, chairman and CEO of Billserv. “As they continue to extend these capabilities, I think it is important that electronic bill present and payment be part of that delivery and they certainly have recognized that.”

The deal adds significantly to the paper bills that Billserv has under management. Before signing Time Warner Cable, Billserv had about 2.3 billion bills under management. With the addition of Time Warner Cable, another 150 million bills will be added to that base annually, Long said.

The Time Warner Cable contract was signed at the corporate level. Each Time Warner Cable company will get the opportunity to select the billing model that best suits their consumers’ needs. Billserv provides two types of billing models: a direct bill presentment and payment facility, where a biller has a presentment and payment capability at their home Web site, and a distribution model, where a consumer may choose to receive all their bills at another location.

“The difference is there is that as a consumer, I can go to one Web site location for EBPP and have all my bills sent to that location,” Long said. “[Or,] one can view and pay bills directly on the company’s Web site, at a variety of front ends such as banks, portals and aggregation sites, or from a combination of both,” he added. Billserv has agreements with every major billing consolidator, including CheckFree, Bank of America, Cyber Bills and BillingZone.

Time Warner will use both billing models. Billserv will create for them a direct Web site at each of their franchises. “We will offer distribution capabilities if they choose,” Long said. “I suspect most will choose to distribute those bills out over the Internet.”

Long believes there’s a real possibility for higher adoption rates for EBPP in cable than in traditional telephony. “It’s too early for us to tell…. But overall in the industry, I believe the adoption rates are beginning to take hold, from the research that we’ve seen, the other announcements from other companies as to their adoption rates, ours certainly mirrors theirs quite well, and in fact, some cases actually exceed theirs,” he said.