Am I correct in thinking that if I pay a bill via an epay, and I never 
get a paper check in return from my bank, then the payee was paid 
electronically, i.e., the payment to the payee never involved any paper 
check anywhere through the process?

I recently switched from MSN Bill Pay to my bank's bill pay service (I 
send payments from within M03 for both).  There's a piece of information 
missing for me when I switched to using my bank as the bill payer:  I 
don't have a list of 'participating billers' (such as on the MSN Bill 
Pay website).  Unless I determine who the third party bill payment 
service the bank is using, and then look at their website, ... because 
the bank has no list of participating billers.

With most bank based online bill pay services, there are two types of
payees.  The first is similar to the MSN "participating payees" where your
bank can typically electronically pay your bill without writing a check.
The second, is everybody else, where you bank has to physically print and
send a paper check to pay your bill.  Since everyone can get paid, there's
no need for an explicit list.  The difference is usually how quickly your
payee gets the $$.  In my case, the bank will clear electronic-only payments
in 2 days, others in 6.

YMMV


"Retired Coal Miner" <...@...> wrote in message
news:%231aLOqqGEHA.700@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Am I correct in thinking that if I pay a bill via an epay, and I never
> get a paper check in return from my bank, then the payee was paid
> electronically, i.e., the payment to the payee never involved any paper
> check anywhere through the process?
>
> I recently switched from MSN Bill Pay to my bank's bill pay service (I
> send payments from within M03 for both).  There's a piece of information
> missing for me when I switched to using my bank as the bill payer:  I
> don't have a list of 'participating billers' (such as on the MSN Bill
> Pay website).  Unless I determine who the third party bill payment
> service the bank is using, and then look at their website, ... because
> the bank has no list of participating billers.
>

I want to take maximize that difference in how quickly the payee gets 
the $$.  And I'm curious how these EFTs/payments work.

I've been reading about how they do it in Europe, they (the banks) have 
a system called Giro (maybe be misspelled). It allows for instantaneous 
deposit of the payment funds into the payee's account, (and presumably 
instantaneous proof the payment got there).  But, oddly, the front end 
is completely manual (a bank customer must hand an envelope / slip of 
paper to a participating bank to authorize payment to a payee), and the 
backend is much more quicker than what we have here.  Whereas, for us, 
our front end is highly automated (all the transfers, bill payments, and 
transaction downloads we can do in Money), but the backend (the 
payments) take days to complete.


John DeMastri wrote:

> With most bank based online bill pay services, there are two types of
> payees.  The first is similar to the MSN "participating payees" where your
> bank can typically electronically pay your bill without writing a check.
> The second, is everybody else, where you bank has to physically print and
> send a paper check to pay your bill.  Since everyone can get paid, there's
> no need for an explicit list.  The difference is usually how quickly your
> payee gets the $$.  In my case, the bank will clear electronic-only payments
> in 2 days, others in 6.
> 
> YMMV
> 
> 
> "Retired Coal Miner" <...@...> wrote in message
> news:%231aLOqqGEHA.700@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> 
>>Am I correct in thinking that if I pay a bill via an epay, and I never
>>get a paper check in return from my bank, then the payee was paid
>>electronically, i.e., the payment to the payee never involved any paper
>>check anywhere through the process?
>>
>>I recently switched from MSN Bill Pay to my bank's bill pay service (I
>>send payments from within M03 for both).  There's a piece of information
>>missing for me when I switched to using my bank as the bill payer:  I
>>don't have a list of 'participating billers' (such as on the MSN Bill
>>Pay website).  Unless I determine who the third party bill payment
>>service the bank is using, and then look at their website, ... because
>>the bank has no list of participating billers.
>>
> 
> 
>