While information has extraordinary time value in the investment world, in retail banking it has comparatively little time value. I have 30 days to pay my bills. Time may be important when I am shopping for a mortgage, but usually I can get the information as conveniently over the phone or in person and still need to close the loan in person. And most people get a mortgage only every couple of years, while investors may trade stocks several times a day or a few times a month. We are still at a point in retail banking where no more than 6-10 percent of customers do anything meaningful online.
Marketing can help.
We have seen an increasing rate of acceptance from leaders like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citibank. When the Post Office begins marketing electronic bill payment, you suspect that they won't get many accounts, but they will increase interest in the service, and may end up helping established leaders such as CheckFree. Ease of understanding and transacting. The ability to manage multiple financial relationships with the same institution. I think account aggregation will begin to take hold this year, even though it is a really touchy issue for some financial institutions.