DANBURY, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 5, 1999--

No Upfront Capital Costs, Low per Message Charge Makes Internet Billing

Virtually "Risk-Free" for Mailers

The Production Mail and Document Factory Solutions Division of Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) today announced it would invest nearly $500,000 in its data processing infrastructure to enable the firm to offer high-volume mailers an Internet bill presentment and payment capability via a service bureau format.

"We are investing to capitalize on the immense success of our innovative Digital Document Delivery (D3) product and service offering--which has been proven in both controlled tests and in unrestricted commercial use--and to make it easier for high-volume mailers to implement an Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) capability," says Brian Baxendale, President of Production Mail and Document Factory Solutions.

Consumers Pay Bills Faster With D3

"Our high-volume mail customers report that consumers using our D3 technology respond to bills faster and are making payments an average of nine days sooner," adds Baxendale. "That's almost twice as fast as the average response rate when they used the traditional or paper-based mail format."

"Plus, the majority of consumers who use D3 tend to make payments the first time they view their bill, so we've seen very little of the tendency to wait for other bills to arrive before making payments."

"Nearly 90 percent of consumers using D3 require no assistance in setting up the automated payment system," adds Karl Schumacher, Vice President and General Manager responsible for the Pitney Bowes e-commerce initiative, "and they also tend to use e-mail to make inquiries, which lowers the work load for customer service call centers."

Since payments are received electronically, there's also no cost or delay involved in opening envelopes and sorting payments, and no chance for payments to get lost or delayed in the mail.

Despite these impressive cash flow and productivity benefits, many high-volume mailers are hesitant to make a large, up-front investment in an Internet billing capability because the pay back in the form of consumer adoption is uncertain. The Pitney Bowes investment and the new service bureau delivery model are designed precisely to address that concern.

Fast, Professional, Low Cost

"Mailers who want to implement an electronic bill presentment and payment capability will now be able to do so without any up-front capital expense," says Schumacher, "and with an extremely low set-up fee and an ongoing messaging charge that is tied directly to actual message volume."

"While we continue to offer our turnkey solution for billers who wish to operate on their own, this offering makes an EBPP initiative extremely attractive for mailers concerned about start-up costs."

In fact, the approach is virtually risk-free, according to Schumacher, and gives high-volume mailers "everything they need" in an Internet bill presentment and payment capability: fast implementation of a proven successful technology, skilled set-up and professional consulting services tailored to their specific needs and an ongoing operating expense which is directly linked to message volume--and which is lower than the cost of processing traditional paper-based bills and their resulting payments.

Pitney Bowes will use the funds to acquire additional computing power and bandwidth, and to boost its consulting services, which already consist of specialists in customer service, project management, software engineering, network and web development, quality assurance and database management.

"We are rapidly expanding our existing capabilities to host web-based bill presentment and payment services, which are based on a Microsoft NT platform, to world-class standards," says David Gardner, Technical Leader D3 Development. "This investment will accelerate our progress and help us ramp up our service bureau model to meet our projected demand for electronic document processing, which is forecast to exceed 200,000 document pages per day next year," says Gardner.

Expertise and Experience

Pitney Bowes is uniquely qualified to offer Internet billing via service bureau, according to Gardner, because the firm has a proven successful technology, is already experienced with banking services and the secure, high-volume electronic transfer of funds, and fully understands the critical nature of high quality customer communications.

In addition to monthly bills, mailing applications involving statement rendering, such as monthly reports from mutual fund companies and investment firms, as well as confirmations of trades and investments, are expected to be among the first to migrate to electronic modes of delivery.

Pitney Bowes Inc. is a $4.2 billion provider of informed mail and message management. For more information visit www.pitneybowes.com.