eBilling Trend Gains Momentum in Canada as Businesses Look for New Ways to go Green

(Vocus) March 26, 2008 -- With Canadian consumers demanding more environmentally friendly options, Canadian businesses are discovering that eBilling (www.striata.com) is one of the most cost effective and simplest ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

According to ebilling expert, Wayne Sperry, General Manager of PresentPay, consumers are showing strong demand for PresentPay's paperless bill presentment that allows consumers to view and pay their bills directly from their email inbox. "We see ebilling quickly becoming the norm in Canada and completely replacing paper billing within our lifetime."

The premise is simple. Consumers opt to receive their monthly bills as secure, navigable & payment enabled PDF's that they can review when checking their email. For consumers who are drowning in paper, it's much more convenient, and the cumulative impact on the environment is staggering.

Small changes in consumer behavior, big impact on the environment:

A study by Javelin Strategy & Research and the Electronic Payments Association, calculates that the environmental impact of every American household choosing to view and pay its bills online would include a 2.1 million ton reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and 800,000 tons less solid waste going in to U.S. landfills annually.

The environmental factor was a big draw for the early adaptors - billers, banks, utilities, telecommunications, and insurance companies. However, you can't be in business today without being environmentally aware. Your customers are watching how you do business, and so is the government.

For any company whose business model involves regular communication with customers, eBilling is definitely one of the fastest, most cost effective ways to make your business more eco-friendly. Removing paper invoices and statements from your billing cycle reduces significant operating costs, quickly returns your investment and dramatically reduces your company's carbon footprint.

The Canadian market is poised to accept paperless billing:

With North American internet penetration continuing to climb, and now at over 70% (representing more than 330-million regular users), the conditions are clearly in place for eBilling to quickly take off and become the standard way to receive bills.

What makes eBilling so probable is that it is just good business. Here in Canada, Winnipeg software services company, IBEX, a PresentPay client who recently switched from delivering paper pay slips to electronic ones, is already experiencing some of the rewards of leading the eBill movement.

"We do consider ourselves a progressive company, but paperless statements and eBilling (www.striata.com) makes sense for most businesses, because everyone benefits. We save money; it's more convenient for our customers and with every statement that we send electronically, we are helping to save the environment. This earns us even more customer loyalty," says Darryl Stewart, who prefers to be called the "Head of the Herd" rather than CEO - another sign of their progressive approach to business.

The 'What's in it for me' for business:

Stewart's comments are very familiar to Garin Toren, COO of Striata, a global leader in the eBilling field. Striata provides similar services to an ever growing list of clients in the U.S and over 175 billers and financial institutions across seven countries on four continents.

"While many businesses attempted to go paperless by drawing customers to their websites, we've found that consumers prefer to have bills, invoices, and statements delivered to them via secure email. Many of our clients have unfortunately learned this the hard way and sadly only turned to us after discovering that their customers were not going to go chasing after their bills, even if they could do it in their pajamas. I say 'sadly' because the implementation of pushing bills and statements to customers costs a fraction of what it costs to implement a web portal, and with paper turn off rates of 10-15% per annum, businesses can reduce their billing costs by up to 80%."

For more information, please visit www.presentpay.ca or www.striata.com.

About PresentPay:

PresentPay Inc.(www.presentpay.ca) is the Canadian representative for Striata and a subsidiary of TelPay Incorporated. The combination of Striata?s electronic bill presentment solutions and TelPay?s electronic payment capabilities accomplishes Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) goals of meeting the needs of both the biller and the bill payer in a cost-effective and convenient way.

About Striata:

Striata Secure eDocument Delivery and Email Bill Presentment & Payment (EBPP) are solution sets - software applications and adoption methodologies - that deliver rapid reduction in operational costs, quicker payments and enhanced customer service.

Striata (www.striata.com) revolutionizes the way bills, statements, contracts, policies, annual reports, paystubs and other high volume system-generated documents are delivered and paid. Unlike today's online presentment solutions which insist on customers visiting and registering at a website, Striata?s solutions (targeting all customers still receiving paper) deliver feature rich, registration-free, navigable and interactive secure email documents directly to the customer?s email inbox and enable ?one-click? electronic payment without them having to visit a single web-page.

This innovative and strategic change from ?pull? to ?push?, dramatically increases customer adoption of electronic communication, allowing Striata?s clients to compliment their existing self-service and e-communication strategies; to achieve rapid ROI, significantly reduce paper output and achieve their carbon footprint / environment impact targets.

Striata has been a provider of software and services in the electronic messaging arena since 1999 and has offices in New York, London, Sydney and Johannesburg, as well as partners in the European Union, Central & South America, and Asia Pacific.

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