DIGINEXUS PRESIDENT SPEAKS OUT

Matthew Grove Discusses Verification and EBPP in the Wake of Princeton eCom Deal

June 13, 2001

SECTION: Vol. 24, No. 12

In the wake of Princeton eCom's recent acquisition of Intuit's Quicken Bill Manager, many retail delivery observers are focused on the challenges of integrating disparate systems and boosting verification capabilities within the electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) space.

To that end, Philadelphia-based Diginexus, Inc., a software engineering and technology consulting firm, has created an open standards-based infrastructure to facilitate the electronic billing and payment relationship between Princeton eCom and Intuit resulting from the deal. Diginexus also has helped equip Princeton eCom to offer real-time on-line enrollment and authentication of new customers, something company officials believe may boost consumer adoption rates by making it easier and more convenient for consumers to enroll for the services.

EFT REPORT caught up with Diginexus President and Co-Founder Matthew Grove last week to discuss the company's strategic direction and the role of real-time verification in the EBPP space. Prior to founding Diginexus, Grove was an investment banker in the Los Angeles office of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. At DLJ, he was involved in initial public offerings, private financings, and mergers and acquisitions of Internet and professional services companies.

EFT: Tell me, what is your company's unique selling proposition?
Grove: Our unique selling proposition within the electronic bill presentment and payment space is, in particular, that we have vertical experience within this space from a business process perspective, as well as horizontal experience,
particularly in the OFX and protocol areas of the technology. Having been one of the first companies to actually go out and build OFX servers three or four years ago with E*TRADE Bank, and having kept up on all of the technologies, we are in a good position to help new companies do the same thing.

EFT: That leads us to what you're doing for Princeton eCom.
Grove: I'm sure you know in a general sense what's happened between Princeton eCom and Intuit, but specifically, we were engaged to come in and, from an overall general contractor perspective, put together the technology that integrates Intuit's operations and Princeton eCom's operations. We are engaged specifically by Princeton eCom. The most important element of that is a payment and presentment system using OFX that connects the two businesses from a distribution perspective.

EFT: What was the most significant challenge that you found with that?
Grove: Really, there were a number of challenges. The deal was happening at Internet speed, and we had to pull together a variety of different technologies in a relatively short period of time while simultaneously innovating certain new mechanisms within the system. For instance, historically, authentication of new consumers within an electronic bill presentment and payment system has been done off-line. That usually takes about seven days while a consumer mails a check to the bill presentment and payment provider to verify their identity . In our case, we decided that process was too slow and that it caused a number of consumers to drop out because they got bored or confused by the delay, so we decided to innovate a new process that would allow consumers to be authenticated on-line and to be signed up immediately. Putting that together was quite a challenge, because it's an entirely new technology and it requires the coordination of a number of different people, including multiple credit bureaus, our client, Intuit, and a variety of other technology players.

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