EAGLE BANCSHARES ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC INVESTMENT IN NEXTBILL.COM AND A REORGANIZATION TO SUPPORT E-COMMERCE INITIATIVES
After piloting NextBill.com's "billing-by-email" system, Eagle offers significant financing and executive leadership to the new company
DALLAS (April 6, 2000).Eagle Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: EBSI), a diversified unitary thrift holding company based in metropolitan Atlanta, today announced that it is building a franchise for the new economy. To accomplish this vision, Eagle has acquired a majority ownership stake in NextBill.com, a company that provides turnkey electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) systems to financial and billing institutions through a unique e-mail delivery system.
At the same time, Eagle is launching justrightbank.com, its co-branded Internet banking site to position Eagle's wholly-owned Tucker Federal Bank as Atlanta's community click and mortar bank. The Company will capitalize on its branch footprint in metropolitan Atlanta to provide on-line banking customers access to a physical location within their market.
"The Internet has fundamentally changed the business process to benefit both businesses and consumers," said Jere Sechler, chairman and chief executive officer of Eagle Bancshares. "The combination of high touch and high tech financial solutions positions us to grow market share in Atlanta to increase the value of our traditional franchise while unlocking the potential of lucrative e-commerce business. The NextBill products offer us a unique advantage with small and mid-size billers."
"The Internet and the new economy operate by a new set of rules," said Rick Inman, chief executive officer of Tucker Federal Bank and president and chief executive officer of NextBill.com. "We have examined our company and are retooling and redirecting our physical and intellectual capital. We are segregating our e-commerce enablers around justrightbank.com to provide additional focus and promote an entrepreneurial culture capable of operating at Internet speed."
Sheila Ray, formerly chief operations officer of Tucker Federal Bank, will become president of justrightbank.com and will be responsible for e-commerce initiatives. Charles Buckner, formerly group president, community banking, will become president of Tucker Federal Bank and will be responsible for our community banking activities. Both will report to Rick Inman. Mike Allen, former head of construction lending for Prime Eagle Mortgage Corporation, was promoted to president of Prime Eagle.
Mark Brinkman, BTI president, will serve as NextBill.com's chief technology officer. Ann Durden, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Eagle Bancshares and Tucker Federal Bank, will hold the same position at NextBill.com.
NextBill.com was formed in mid February as a spin-off from its parent company, Brinkman Technologies, Inc. (BTI) of Carrollton, Texas. Eagle Bancshares' community banking subsidiary, Tucker Federal Bank, was the first financial institution to pilot the NextBill.com system.
"We feel this is an opportunistic investment in a technology that has distinct advantages over existing EBPP products," said Inman. "The online bill paying market is a multi-billion dollar market that is poised for robust growth, and NextBill.com has the potential to be a market leader."
"The EBPP industry is still young, but it is projected to boom to 33 percent of all wired U.S. households over the next four years," said Brinkman. "NextBill.com best addresses each of the major concerns most often raised about electronic billing, including privacy issues, costs, and convenience, and we think NextBill.com is poised to capture a sizeable portion of that new market."
NextBill.com's EBPP system follows a paperless, direct billing model, whereby merchants e-mail bills directly to customers who simply click on a "Pay Bill" hyperlink and enter the amount they would like to pay. By utilizing two inexpensive and efficient technologies: the Internet to e-mail bills directly to customers and the Federal Reserve's Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) to process payments, NextBill.com allows merchants to keep control of billing and payment processing in-house.
This is in contrast to existing "consolidator" billing systems where companies must send billing information to a third party, which then presents the bill to customers via the Internet. Customers pay the third party, which in turn writes a check to the merchant. Under this system, merchants are charged transaction fees by the third party providers, which often are passed on to consumers.
BTI created the NextBill.com system based on its highly successful ACH origination system, CAP 2000, which has been used by many financial institutions and service bureaus including ALLTEL. The system extracts billing data for a particular customer, then produces statements in either Word or HTML format and e-mails the bill directly to the customer.
The customer can set payment options, such as the date they wish for the payment to clear and the amount they wish to pay, and view marketing messages offered by the biller. The transaction is then warehoused by the NextBill.com system until the date the customer selected to make the payment. On the payment due date, the transaction is processed via the ACH.
About Eagle Bancshares Inc.
Eagle Bancshares Inc. is a unitary thrift holding company located in metropolitan Atlanta. The Company is engaged in four lines of business: community banking, mortgage banking, mezzanine financing and real estate development and sales. The Company's common stock trades on the NASDAQ-AMEX exchanges under the symbol EBSI. For further information about Eagle Bancshares, visit www.eaglebancshares.com and www.justrightbank.com.
About Brinkman Technologies, Inc.
Brinkman Technologies, Inc. (BTI) was founded in 1984 in Carrollton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. In 1986, BTI introduced PowerLine, the first PC-based, multi-tasking cash management system operating in a private network environment. BTI now offers a full suite of banking services for small banks to multi-bank service bureaus, including electronic bill presentment and payment, corporate cash management, home banking, Internet banking, fax reporting, and ACH. In January 1999, BTI became a pioneer in the direct model of electronic billing when it launched NextBill. Please visit www.banksystems.com or www.nextbill.com for more information.
Safe Harbor
This press release may contain various forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ from those described. A discussion of various factors, including factors beyond Eagle Bancshares' control, that could cause Eagle Bancshares' results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements is included in the Company's fiscal year-end Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Kevin Doel
Talon Partners
972-466-0040
kevin@talonsc.com
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