CheckFree and Firethorn Partner To Deliver Mobile Banking and Bill Payment Services for Financial Institutions
10 November 2006 - 1:15AM
PR Newswire (US)
- Partnership will bring secure banking and electronic billing and
payment services to consumers' cellular phones and other mobile
devices - ATLANTA, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CheckFree
Corporation (NASDAQ:CKFR) and Firethorn Holdings, LLC, today
announced an exclusive partnership agreement to deliver mobile
banking and bill payment services to financial institutions. The
partnership will leverage Firethorn's mobile banking and payments
solution to enable consumers to use their mobile devices to view
account balances, check credit card balances, transfer funds
between accounts, and receive and pay household bills. This service
is currently deployed at a financial institution and will be
generally available in early 2007. "The new mobile banking and
payment service will provide the most powerful, secure and flexible
solution on the market," said Matt Lewis, executive vice president
and general manager of the CheckFree Electronic Commerce Division.
"Firethorn is an ideal partner to bring mobile connectivity to our
electronic billing and payment processing services because their
technology is uniquely designed to support use on virtually any
mobile device. The mobile channel offers the exciting potential to
increase the frequency of consumers' online banking and electronic
bill payment usage, while helping banks, credit unions and other
financial institutions build and retain more profitable
relationships with their customers." Firethorn's downloadable
application supports virtually any cell phone or mobile device. The
Firethorn application also provides multiple levels of security,
including PIN authorization and lockout, contents clearing if the
phone is lost or stolen, data encryption, two-factor
authentication, and security via the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
protocol. Even when a wireless connection is lost, consumers can be
assured that their transaction will process automatically when a
signal becomes available. CheckFree will host the Firethorn
application on the same robust, secure and stable financial
services platform that annually processes more than one billion
transactions, including online, walk-in, phone and automatic debit
payments. "Joining forces with CheckFree will enable both companies
to drive new mobile financial solutions to the marketplace and onto
the mobile screens of millions of Americans," said Firethorn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tripp Rackley. "CheckFree is
an important partner for Firethorn because of its world-class
infrastructure, reputation for operational excellence, innovative
payments solutions and respected leadership among leading financial
institutions and billers." Americans are showing an increasing
appetite for a host of new mobile data and entertainment
applications. A recent survey, conducted for CheckFree by MQA
Research, found that 49 percent of 1,023 survey respondents would
use a mobile banking and payments application if offered to them.
Approximately 70 percent of respondents said they would prefer to
receive the service from financial institutions. Younger consumers
in the 25 to 34 age group expressed the most interest in mobile
banking and payment services. CheckFree has demonstrated its
ability to transform innovative electronic billing and payment
technology into proven, market-ready solutions that enable
financial services organizations to meet their acquisition,
retention and optimization goals through their secure online
channel. CheckFree solutions enable both consumers and small
business customers to view and manage more of their overall
financial picture anywhere, any time, with the same security,
intuitive functionality and convenience they have come to expect
and trust from their financial institution's online channel.
CheckFree's solutions include online integrated personal finance
management; online account opening, funding and transfer
capabilities; electronic billing and payment for consumers;
electronic invoice presentment, payment and receivables solutions
for small business banking customers; mobile payment solutions;
flexible web services technology for electronic billing and
payment; and payment fraud detection and prevention. About
Firethorn (http://www.firethornmobile.com/) Firethorn Holdings, LLC
is an Atlanta-based mobile banking and payment service enabler that
links financial institutions and wireless carriers through a
unified, secure and scalable technology platform that seamlessly
extends full-service banking and payment capabilities to consumers
from any financial institution to virtually any wireless device. By
partnering with Firethorn, financial institutions and wireless
carriers alike gain a competitive service differentiator that
improves customer retention, generates revenue and answers consumer
demands for more product/service convenience. About CheckFree
(http://www.checkfreecorp.com/) Founded in 1981, CheckFree
Corporation (NASDAQ:CKFR) provides financial electronic commerce
services and products to organizations around the world. CheckFree
Electronic Commerce solutions enable thousands of financial
services providers and billers to offer the convenience of
receiving and paying household bills online, via phone or in person
through retail outlets. CheckFree Investment Services provides a
broad range of investment management solutions and outsourced
services to hundreds of financial services organizations, which
manage about $1.5 trillion in assets. CheckFree Software develops,
markets and supports payment processing solutions that are used by
financial institutions to process more than two-thirds of the 14
billion Automated Clearing House transactions in the United States,
and supports reconciliation, exception management, risk management,
transaction process management, corporate actions processing, and
compliance within thousands of organizations worldwide. Certain of
CheckFree's statements in this press release are not purely
historical, and as such are "forward-looking statements" within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These include statements regarding management's intentions, plans,
beliefs, expectations or projections of the future. Forward-looking
statements involve risks and uncertainties, including without
limitation, the various risks inherent in CheckFree's business, and
other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in
CheckFree's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including CheckFree's Annual Report on Form 10-K for
the quarter ended June 30, 2006 (filed September 8, 2006) and Form
10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2006 (filed November 8,
2006). One or more of these factors have affected, and could in the
future affect CheckFree's business and financial results in future
periods, and could cause actual results to differ materially from
plans and projections. There can be no assurance that the
forward-looking statements made in this press release will prove to
be accurate, and issuance of such forward-looking statements should
not be regarded as a representation by CheckFree, or any other
person, that the objectives and plans of CheckFree will be
achieved. All forward-looking statements made in this press release
are based on information presently available to management, and
CheckFree assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking
statements. DATASOURCE: CheckFree Corporation CONTACT: Media, Judy
DeRango Wicks, +1-678-375-1595, or , or Investors, Tina Moore,
+1-678-375-1278, or , both of CheckFree Corporation; or Kelly Buday
of Firethorn Holdings, LLC, +1-678-507-2555, or Web site:
http://www.checkfreecorp.com/ http://www.firethornmobile.com/
Copyright
Checkfree Corp (MM) (NASDAQ:CKFR)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2024 to Oct 2024
Checkfree Corp (MM) (NASDAQ:CKFR)
Historical Stock Chart
From Oct 2023 to Oct 2024