When Pete Kight founded CheckFree in his grandmother's basement in Columbus, Ohio, nearly a quarter of a century ago, his vision was to enable average people to automate paying their bills. He succeeded.
In its last quarter, the corporation delivered more than 42.7 million e-bills and over 140 million e-bills in its last fiscal year. Hundreds of financial institutions use CheckFree's portfolio management system. The company processed over 900 million transactions in the last year. More than 2 million portfolios, totaling more than $1.2 trillion in assets, are managed by its products. With a global presence, CheckFree's software is used by financial institutions to process more than two-thirds of the 12 billion domestic Automated Clearing House electronic funds transfer payments each year. Thousands of banks and businesses are clients.
The list of achievements goes on and on.
Under Kight's leadership, CheckFree has progressively expanded its scope as the financial electronic commerce market has moved forward. Thanks to a history of savvy internal development and acquisition, its complementary infrastructures now include bill payment, electronic funds transfer, investment services, compliance services, payment transaction software, electronic billing software, risk management and global financial transaction management capabilities.
Headquartered in Norcross since 1996, when CheckFree purchased SSI and its sprawling, riverside corporate complex, the company currently boasts an employee roster of 3,100 and continues to enjoy phenomenal success and growth.
But why?
"At CheckFree, we are most successful when we focus on our customers, listen carefully to understand their needs and then hold ourselves accountable to execute efficiently to deliver solutions that meet those needs with quality," says Matt Lewis, executive vice president and general manager of CheckFree's electronic commerce division. "Over time, through successes and failures, we find that there is simply no substitute for this customer focus and quality execution as we innovate in the rapidly growing and changing market of electronic commerce."
Rapidly changing, indeed. With online payment fast becoming the prevailing mode of consumer bill satisfaction, solving the challenges of protecting personal information has become critical. Ever at the forefront of serving electronic commerce, CheckFree has newly launched CheckFree FraudNet, the company's newest answer to the fraud danger prevalent in offline, paper-based bills and payments. An automated system that tackles fraud before it happens, FraudNet was conceived as a solution for both consumers and financial institutions.
It is yet another attempt by CheckFree to anticipate customer needs and solve them.
"CheckFree processes millions of electronic billing and payment transactions every day for large financial institutions, billers and consumers, and our involvement gives us the ability to provide alerts on suspicious transactions across all those customer bases to detect potential fraud before it happens," Lewis explains. "This unique capability saves financial institutions, billers and consumers money and hassles by leveraging our network infrastructure to find fraud before it is completed and, subsequently, to provide effective data for pursuit of those trying to commit fraud."
Javelin Strategy & Research estimates that identify fraud crimes total $52.6 billion annually. Consumer tips for fraud protection can be found at www.idsafety.net. According to an October Gartner report, about 65 percent of all U.S. banks will use transaction anomaly detection and user profiling systems by the end of 2010.
"Using technology to prevent and detect identity fraud represents an opportunity for financial institutions to differentiate themselves on improved customer safety and overall profitability," says James Van Dyke, founder of Javelin Strategy & Research. "Fraudsters access information through all channels, and may try to leverage electronic transactions to commit crimes. As an automated system that combines early detection with prevention of fraudulent transactions, CheckFree's solution has the potential to further deliver on the inherent potential safety advantages of electronic payments."
The model of professional success is one that can be adapted by other corporations.
"Regardless of the business application, understanding your buyers' needs and remaining diligent as you invent and execute quality solutions to meet those needs is the foundation of success," Lewis says. "This, of course, is only possible with talented associates who share accountability for that success and are motivated and rewarded by it."
