How Far Into This Retro Children's Guide To The Internet Can You Get...

[JHB]

11. It was much more limited, but it was there...

...usually through third party companies like CheckFree, or certain software packages. From a 1997 article in Netbanker (same year as the video):

Next generation of Electronic Bill Payment
By Jim Bruene on November 1, 1997 9:46 AM

Last year we made the case for reengineering bill payment. We reasoned that the $800 annual tab each US bill-paying household incurred to pay bills the old-fashioned way would provide an attractive target for the major payment players. Indeed a number of vendors have surfaced in the past 12 months devoted to transforming the paper billing process into a completely electronic version delivered over the Internet.

But what also has become clearer is that the banking industry has neglected one of the primary participants in the electronic bill payment process — the biller. We don’t see signs of that changing any time soon. IQPC’s Internet Billing Conference (Nov. 18-19 in Chicago), billed as the first conference on electronic bill payments from the biller’s perspective, drew some of the largest billers in the country but only two bankers. That spells opportunity for those quick to develop programs that cater not only to the online consumer, but to the biller as well.

It’s Biller Time
The next generation of electronic bill payment won’t be driven by Checkfree, Integrion, or Microsoft. The billers are calling the shots. And they should since they’ll be paying the freight.
***
Within the next 18-24 months, we expect to see bills being presented and paid in the following ways:

Where the Bills Are: circa 1999
on the user’s desktop (a.k.a. Webtop) pushed there by the biller or third party
at the biller’s Web site
at other biller’s Web sites (e.g. bill consolidation at a biller’s Web)
at financial institution Web sites linked directly to billers
at financial institution Web sites linked to concentrators
in Microsoft Money, Quicken and MYM
at bill concentrator Web sites (MSFDC, Checkfree, Billsite.com, etc.)
at third-party financial services Web sites (Quicken.com, CNNfn, Money Magazine, etc.)
at content aggregator Web sites (Yahoo, Excite, etc.)
at independent billing sites hyperlinked directly to billers

http://www.netbanker.com/1997/11/next_generation_electronic_bill_payment.html