American Banker/Bond Buyer TransPoint, the bill payment and presentment joint venture between Microsoft Corp., First Data Corp. and Citibank, garnered yet another big bank to pilot its Internet bill delivery program: Wachovia.

Under the pilot, 100 of the North Carolina-based bank’s Internet customers will receive and pay their bills on the bank Web site. The bank joins Bank One, Citibank, First Union Corp., InterWest, Key Bank, Mellon Bank Corp., Merrill Lynch, Norwest and Wells Fargo in the pilot. The venture aims to give market leader, Checkfree, a run for its money. Wachovia already uses Checkfree for electronic bill payment, and is reportedly considering piloting bill presentment with the firm also.

In related news, PNC reportedly will also be offering bill presentment to all of its customers through Checkfree by the end of the year. That would make PNC only the second or third bank after First Union Corp. to have on-line bill presentment, depending on if it can beat Bank One Corp. to the market, as reported in Financial Modernization Report’s sister publication, the American Banker. PNC is also getting ready to test bill presentment software from TransPoint.

Analysts have said that although Checkfree has a good product, banks are willing to give TransPoint a shot so as not to be "beholden" to Checkfree. One phrased the situation as banks wanting Checkfree–which has 80% of the market in bill payment with the all-important pay-anyone capability that TransPoint is still working to perfect–not to think it is the only game in town. Pay anyone means a customer can get all of his or her bills on-line through the bank Web sites whether the bank has a connection with the vendor or not.

Earlier this year, Checkfree announced its impending merger with Internet portal Yahoo! Analysts said the combination would be a potent one and tough to beat if banks didn’t have the cash to go out and strike a deal with another major Internet portal to grab the traffic. Although TransPoint’s program is still being piloted, and may develop even better bells and whistles than Checkfree’s, until it can master the pay-anyone technology, it will not be able to compete effectively, sources said.