NACHA announced this morning that it will conduct a pilot of the Electronic Billing Information Delivery Service (EBIDS).
Under the EBIDS model, a billing company would originate a zero-dollar ACH transaction that contains a summary of a consumer's billing information in an attached addenda record, and enter the transaction into the ACH Network through its corporate bank. The consumer's financial institution would receive the transaction via the ACH Network, and present the billing information at its Internet banking web site. The consumer would enter the Internet banking web site, using the financial institution's existing logon procedure, and view the bill and authorize payment. The consumer's financial institution would then send an ACH credit back to the biller's bank, along with remittance information.