However, the IBPP market is growing significantly on the biller side of the equation. The repository of biller content is increasing dramatically, and most of the top 400 billers, accounting for over 80 percent of recurring bills annually, have already contracted with IBPP vendors and integrators. The current IBPP market, though fragmented, is beginning to show more definition. Before making crucial decisions on billing issues, billers should understand the basic IBPP consolidation models. The merits of competing models have been widely debated, and a combination of direct and thin consolidation models has won the debate.
Thin consolidation offers bill summary online, with branding, marketing, and payment options.
It also provides the opportunity for connectivity back to the biller site for things such as bill detail, extended customer care, and interactive marketing. Finally, thin consolidation enables broad distribution of bill content to a wide range of aggregation sites, such as portals, online banking, and other consumer endpoints. In the direct model, the biller organization hosts its own billing site. This model will remain an option for large organizations with an established brand that can leverage their marketing resources to drive consumers directly to their sites. To plan an effective e-commerce strategy, billers must be familiar with the details of these standards and how they relate to their organizations' products and services.