John Frech has 11 years of experience at CheckFree in a variety of roles, including operations, development, client services, alliance management, process improvement and infrastructure engineering. His current assignment includes the creation and execution of an infrastructure transformation strategy including:

• The construction of new data centers
• Implementation of ITIL processes
• Installation and engineering of High Availability technologies
• Deployment of Data Center Automation and System Instrumentation

Prior to CheckFree, John managed a large supply chain for an apparel company; was COO for a greeting card company; managed the supply chain for a cosmetics company; and managed data processing development and operations for two pharmaceutical companies.

Without disclosing any proprietary information, can you explain how technology drives value in transaction processing companies?

Technology is of course integral and absolutely vital to the transaction processing business, and we've seen it evolve to meet the growing demands of the online bill payment business. Today, paying bills online has moved into the mainstream. More consumers have high-speed Internet connections, and online bill payment has become a mission-critical application - much like a bank ATM - another automated channel that customers expect to be available 24 by 7. Like ATM usage, we've found there are relative peaks and valleys in transaction volumes. Interestingly enough, we see the highest transaction volumes during the workday between 9:30 a.m. until around 2 p.m. as consumers sit down at their computers to pay their bills. When there's a snowstorm or other weather event and people lose power, we see huge spikes in volumes afterward. So obviously, it's important that we build out our capacity so it's available on demand during these peak periods within the 24-hour cycle. We're fortunate that because online bill payment is a relatively newer application, we don't have the problem of legacy systems -- we're already using the latest technologies and Six Sigma approaches to ensure high availability and support an average of 5 million transactions a day and more than 1 billion transactions a year.

In what ways is this a process rather than an event?

Quality and operational excellence are definitely vital processes that are baked into everything we do - from change and release management to maintenance. So while there are events and milestones in the way we run our business, Six Sigma methodology and continual process improvement are priorities for CheckFree.

CheckFree is largely tied to bank check accounts. Will CheckFree expand into non-checking account work?

We are a leader in payments processing in retail and corporate banking and investment services technology. Besides online bill payment at bank and biller websites, we also have a walk-in and phone channels that allow consumers, whether they have bank accounts or not, to walk into a retail location or pay their bills over the phone. We have recently closed the acquisition of Carreker, a leader in remote deposit capture products, creating the industry's only provider of solutions across cash, check, check imaging and automated clearing house (ACH) payment types. In addition, CheckFree provides a broad range of investment management solutions and outsourced services to hundreds of financial services organization, which manage $1.7 trillion in assets.

Is CheckFree looking at mobile payments?

CheckFree is directly involved in the rollout of Bank of America's mobile banking and payments service across the country this year. CheckFree's payment processing infrastructure will enable Bank of America customers to view electronic bills on their cell phone or other mobile device, and schedule and cancel payments. CheckFree is also in partnership with Atlanta-based Firethorn Mobile to deliver mobile banking and payment services to financial institutions like Wachovia, SunTrust, Regions and BancorpSouth, among others. Mobile banking and payments is going to allow consumers to pay their bills, check balances, transfer funds anywhere and at any time. If you look at Generation Y, for example, they use their mobile devices for everything from text messaging to taking photos. Using mobile devices to pay household bills and manage their banking accounts is a next logical step - and we're excited to be part of this evolution in mobile technologies.

The Economist Magazine's recent cover touts "The End of the Cash Era." Was this celebrated at CheckFree?

At CheckFree, we're probably too busy to celebrate these kinds of events! In fact, modern history has shown that as new payment types are introduced, the old ones don't go away. Our customers - financial institutions and corporations - deal with increasingly complex payment channels every day, and we help make navigating this constantly changing market easier. In April, we will announce that online bill payments for the first time have surpassed check bill payments among American households with an Internet connection, according to a Harris Interactive survey we sponsored. It's a very interesting time to be serving the financial services market - that's certainly an understatement.