NEW MEDIA: ScottishPower invests pounds 1m in Internet billing

Utilities company ScottishPower is investing pounds 1m to enable

customers to pay their energy bills via the Internet.

The company, which also owns Manweb, Southern Water and ScottishTelecom,

delivers gas, electricity and water to one in five homes in the UK. It

plans to start operating the customer account service within the next

six to 12 months.

Ian Russell, finance director of ScottishPower, said the Internet would

play a major role in helping the company meet its utility ambitions by

the year 2000. These are to capture 15% of the UK electricity market,

12% of the gas market in its three main operating regions and 10% of the

Scottish telecoms market.

The service will offer Internet billing which will allow customers to

make a single payment for all utility accounts held with

ScottishPower.

In addition, ScottishPower’s electrical retailing business is setting up

a ’virtual shopfront’.

Russell said: ’We believe the Internet will come into its own over the

next few years.’

Competition between utility companies will heat up this September when

the domestic electricity market is deregulated.

This article was first published on Marketing