Charter One Throws a Fastball.

• Position: Bank markets electronic bill paying service - Brief Article

Banking is a little like baseball: You throw your best pitch out there and hope somebody swings at it. At Cleveland's Charter One Bank--to stretch an already-strained metaphor--the pitch is so successful that the game's gone into extra innings.

In an effort to introduce its new electronic bill payment service, Charter One added a new wrinkle to its ongoing MegaReward program: Sign up for electronic bill presentment and pay your bills online, and Charter One will award one point for every dollar you spent. Since online bill payment costs customers nothing (at present), bank officials figured it would result in a Lot of new business.

They figured right.

The program began in January. By the end of June, more than 35,000 customers had signed up (out of a total of about 125,000 online banking customers). Online bill-paying expenditures mushroomed from about $2 million during the...