Bank of America Achieves Highest Adoption of Online Bill Pay Among Leading Banks

Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America ($1.3 trillion in assets) has achieved highest penetration for online bill pay, according to a study released last week by Reston, Va.-based comScore Networks, a global Internet information provider.

According to the study, which analyzed the usage of online bill payment services at leading banks, among those consumers who had one or more checking, savings or money market accounts and who used online bank bill pay during Q4 2006 with a financial institution, Bank of America achieved 65 percent penetration. Wells Fargo (San Francisco; $482 billion in assets) ranked second in penetration of online bill payers, with 18 percent, followed by Chase (New York; $1.4 trillion in assets) and Wachovia (Charlotte; $707 billion in assets), which each garnered 13 percent penetration.

"The results of this analysis highlight one of the many reasons why Bank of America is the leader in providing online banking services," said Sanjay Gupta, e-commerce executive at Bank of America, in a statement. "That leadership reflects our continued focus on providing consumers with strong online security and solutions that meet their financial needs."

"Bank of America's industry-leading penetration of the online bill payer market is driven by its large customer base, combined with broad, ongoing marketing campaigns that have successfully enticed customers to use the bank's online bill pay functionality," said Serge Matta, senior vice president of comScore financial solutions.

For this survey, comScore defined bank bill pay as paying a bill online from a checking, savings or money-market account using the functionality in the bill-pay portion of the bank's Web site and where the recipient of the money is not the bank itself.