CKFR Checkfree Corp (MM)

- Partnership will bring secure banking and electronic billing and payment services to consumers' cellular phones and other mobile devices - ATLANTA, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CheckFree Corporation (NASDAQ:CKFR) and Firethorn Holdings, LLC, today announced an exclusive partnership agreement to deliver mobile banking and bill payment services to financial institutions. The partnership will leverage Firethorn's mobile banking and payments solution to enable consumers to use their mobile devices to view account balances, check credit card balances, transfer funds between accounts, and receive and pay household bills. This service is currently deployed at a financial institution and will be generally available in early 2007. "The new mobile banking and payment service will provide the most powerful, secure and flexible solution on the market," said Matt Lewis, executive vice president and general manager of the CheckFree Electronic Commerce Division. "Firethorn is an ideal partner to bring mobile connectivity to our electronic billing and payment processing services because their technology is uniquely designed to support use on virtually any mobile device. The mobile channel offers the exciting potential to increase the frequency of consumers' online banking and electronic bill payment usage, while helping banks, credit unions and other financial institutions build and retain more profitable relationships with their customers." Firethorn's downloadable application supports virtually any cell phone or mobile device. The Firethorn application also provides multiple levels of security, including PIN authorization and lockout, contents clearing if the phone is lost or stolen, data encryption, two-factor authentication, and security via the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. Even when a wireless connection is lost, consumers can be assured that their transaction will process automatically when a signal becomes available. CheckFree will host the Firethorn application on the same robust, secure and stable financial services platform that annually processes more than one billion transactions, including online, walk-in, phone and automatic debit payments. "Joining forces with CheckFree will enable both companies to drive new mobile financial solutions to the marketplace and onto the mobile screens of millions of Americans," said Firethorn Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tripp Rackley. "CheckFree is an important partner for Firethorn because of its world-class infrastructure, reputation for operational excellence, innovative payments solutions and respected leadership among leading financial institutions and billers." Americans are showing an increasing appetite for a host of new mobile data and entertainment applications. A recent survey, conducted for CheckFree by MQA Research, found that 49 percent of 1,023 survey respondents would use a mobile banking and payments application if offered to them. Approximately 70 percent of respondents said they would prefer to receive the service from financial institutions. Younger consumers in the 25 to 34 age group expressed the most interest in mobile banking and payment services. CheckFree has demonstrated its ability to transform innovative electronic billing and payment technology into proven, market-ready solutions that enable financial services organizations to meet their acquisition, retention and optimization goals through their secure online channel. CheckFree solutions enable both consumers and small business customers to view and manage more of their overall financial picture anywhere, any time, with the same security, intuitive functionality and convenience they have come to expect and trust from their financial institution's online channel. CheckFree's solutions include online integrated personal finance management; online account opening, funding and transfer capabilities; electronic billing and payment for consumers; electronic invoice presentment, payment and receivables solutions for small business banking customers; mobile payment solutions; flexible web services technology for electronic billing and payment; and payment fraud detection and prevention. About Firethorn (http://www.firethornmobile.com/) Firethorn Holdings, LLC is an Atlanta-based mobile banking and payment service enabler that links financial institutions and wireless carriers through a unified, secure and scalable technology platform that seamlessly extends full-service banking and payment capabilities to consumers from any financial institution to virtually any wireless device. By partnering with Firethorn, financial institutions and wireless carriers alike gain a competitive service differentiator that improves customer retention, generates revenue and answers consumer demands for more product/service convenience. About CheckFree (http://www.checkfreecorp.com/) Founded in 1981, CheckFree Corporation (NASDAQ:CKFR) provides financial electronic commerce services and products to organizations around the world. CheckFree Electronic Commerce solutions enable thousands of financial services providers and billers to offer the convenience of receiving and paying household bills online, via phone or in person through retail outlets. CheckFree Investment Services provides a broad range of investment management solutions and outsourced services to hundreds of financial services organizations, which manage about $1.5 trillion in assets. CheckFree Software develops, markets and supports payment processing solutions that are used by financial institutions to process more than two-thirds of the 14 billion Automated Clearing House transactions in the United States, and supports reconciliation, exception management, risk management, transaction process management, corporate actions processing, and compliance within thousands of organizations worldwide. Certain of CheckFree's statements in this press release are not purely historical, and as such are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements regarding management's intentions, plans, beliefs, expectations or projections of the future. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the various risks inherent in CheckFree's business, and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in CheckFree's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including CheckFree's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the quarter ended June 30, 2006 (filed September 8, 2006) and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2006 (filed November 8, 2006). One or more of these factors have affected, and could in the future affect CheckFree's business and financial results in future periods, and could cause actual results to differ materially from plans and projections. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements made in this press release will prove to be accurate, and issuance of such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by CheckFree, or any other person, that the objectives and plans of CheckFree will be achieved. All forward-looking statements made in this press release are based on information presently available to management, and CheckFree assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. DATASOURCE: CheckFree Corporation CONTACT: Media, Judy DeRango Wicks, +1-678-375-1595, or , or Investors, Tina Moore, +1-678-375-1278, or , both of CheckFree Corporation; or Kelly Buday of Firethorn Holdings, LLC, +1-678-507-2555, or Web site: http://www.checkfreecorp.com/ http://www.firethornmobile.com/

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