DANBURY, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--February 22, 2000--Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI), the global leader in mail and messaging management, and CheckFree (NASDAQ:CKFR), the leader in electronic billing and payment services, today announced an agreement which will allow the customers of companies using Pitney Bowes' Digital Document Delivery&#153(D3) solution to view and pay bills online via CheckFree's extensive network of electronic billing and payment sites. These include those sites sponsored by CheckFree partners and consumer service providers including banks, brokerage firms, Internet portals and content sites, and personal financial management software--using Pitney Bowes D3 technology. This agreement is part of a recently launched initiative by Pitney Bowes to aggressively reach out to its customer base consisting of Global 2000 companies to introduce its technology for online bill presentment.

The Pitney Bowes D3 Internet billing solution benefits billers by lowering the cost of distributing statements, accelerating their delivery to near instantaneous status, expediting the receipt of payments, and enhancing the value of messages by tailoring inserts to specific customer profiles. D3 is also capable of extracting bill information and providing it to bill consolidators and consumer service providers.

"Pitney Bowes is a key partner for us because of their leading position in print stream engineering and paper-based billing, and their unique ability to serve as a 'bridge' to customers that have not yet migrated to electronic billing," says Sean Feeney, Executive Vice President for CheckFree.

"CheckFree pioneered the development of electronic bill presentment and payment," says Karl Schumacher, Vice President and General Manager of Document Factory Solutions for Pitney Bowes. "Pitney Bowes pioneered D3, a flexible platform that provides companies options for seamlessly transitioning from paper-based to electronic billing. This alliance provides billers with the best of both worlds--a broader distribution network for bills based on Pitney Bowes' digital statements, bills and other customer-oriented communications."

Whether accessing their bill at a consolidation site, or at the billing company's own site, consumers of companies using Pitney Bowes Internet billing benefit because they no longer need to open and sort through paper bills, write checks, or stuff and stamp envelopes. And the risk of lost or delayed payments is significantly reduced since funds are transferred electronically.

"Internet billing is on the verge of rapid expansion, fueled by the proliferation of options for consumers to receive bills in both summary and detailed fashion and pay through various models," adds Schumacher.

"D3 is particularly well-suited to this environment," Schumacher continues, "because it can be implemented either at the biller's web site and through integrated electronic billing and payment providers like CheckFree and their distribution partners such as portals, banks, brokerages, credit unions or personal financial management software, which affords the greatest choice of where consumers can receive and pay bills."

Easy Implementation a Key Advantage for Billers

"We expect a significant advantage will accrue to businesses that are able to implement Internet billing with a minimum of disruption to their existing paper-based billing operations," continues Schumacher. "Our D3 solution helps meet this critical need because it is easily integrated with existing processes, requires only one vendor relationship for billers to manage, and features fully integrated and simplified reporting and remittance processing across all distribution channels."

Additionally, D3's ability to custom-tailor electronic statements with one-to-one messages serves to "strengthen the entire customer relationship by transforming the electronic statement into a focused, interactive dialog with consumers," according to Schumacher.

"We're excited about the potential for the Pitney Bowes relationship with CheckFree," adds Shirley Dion, Senior Manager, Client Fulfillment for United Illuminating, a Connecticut-based electric utility that utilizes Pitney Bowes D3 technology for Internet billing. "It means our customers will now have the added convenience of using either our web site, or the capabilities of CheckFree, as a way to view and pay their United Illuminating bills--all without any extra effort on our part."

"This agreement helps underscore the comprehensive nature of the Pitney Bowes D3 platform for rendering, distributing, tracking and processing bills and their resulting payments electronically, as well as the immense flexibility it offers for implementing the solution in a variety of operational modes quickly, easily and with a minimum of disruption to existing paper-based statement rendering operations," adds Jeetu Patel, Vice President of Research for Doculabs, an independent industry analyst firm based in Chicago.

About CheckFree

CheckFree Corporation (www.checkfree.com), is the leading provider of financial electronic commerce services and products. Founded as an electronic payments processor in 1981, CheckFree launched the first fully integrated electronic billing and payment solution, CheckFree E-Bill(sm), in March of 1997. Today, CheckFree services enable three million consumers to receive and pay bills over the Internet or electronically. The Company has multi-year contracts with 89 of the nation's top billers to provide online billing and payment through its network of partnerships with more than 100 consumer service providers (CSPs), including banks, brokerage firms, Internet portals and content sites, and personal financial management (PFM) software. CheckFree's Investment Services division provides a range of investment management services to help more than 255 institutions provide portfolio management and reporting services to their clients. CheckFree clients manage over 820,000 portfolios totaling more than $480 billion in assets. Software and services provided by CheckFree's Compliance and Financial Service division is used to process more than two-thirds of the nation's six billion Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments. In addition, nearly 400 banks and businesses use reconciliation products and services the division provides.

About Pitney Bowes

Pitney Bowes Inc. is a $4.4 billion provider of informed mail and message management. The Pitney Bowes Production Mail and Document Factory Solutions Division is a leading provider of hardware, software, professional services and systems integration which enable high-volume mailers to create, manage and deliver highly personalized customer documents via hard copy, the Internet and other electronic channels. The world's leading 2000 enterprises use Pitney Bowes' hardware and software solutions to produce documents with more impact so they can speed payment and accelerate cash flow, increase sales via highly targeted one-to-one marketing programs and bolster customer satisfaction by promptly delivering a document via the customer's media preference. For more information visit www.pitneybowes.com.

CONTACT:
Lynn Stefik
630-435-7516
lstefik@pbss.com
or
George Linkletter
860-350-4043
georgeol@ntplx.net