Online bill payers are better bill payers

That's the gist of a new study by ComScore Networks, which examined the bank accounts of thousands of people with online bank access and found that those who pay bills online through their bank have twice the account balances of those who don't and are less likely to bank-hop. The study comes amid other evidence that paperless bill-paying is hitting its stride and becoming a standard operating procedure for an increasing number of consumers. In addition to having higher incomes, people who use their bank's online bill-paying services have higher bank balances than do those who bank online but don't use those bill-paying services. At $4,800 for combined checking and savings accounts, the figure is twice as high for online bill payers, ComScore found. The study looked at the 11 biggest U.S. banks--including Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo--and "tens of thousands" of accounts. It found that between the second and fourth quarters of 2002, 20 percent of people with Internet access used some sort of online banking service.