Shares in the online bill payment vendor CheckFree Corp. fell 7% on Wednesday after an analyst expressed concern that Bank of America Corp., a major CheckFree customer, may cut back on its business.
David M. Scharf, an analyst at JMP Securities, reduced his rating on the Atlanta company to "market outperform," from "strong buy." He linked the downgrade to his expectation that B of A was "planning to transition the payment warehouse portion of its online bill-pay processing in-house." He based the prediction on conversations with vendors and consultants, he said.
A B of A spokeswoman said CheckFree continues to be the company's bill pay provider but declined to comment beyond that.
Mr. Scharf estimated that CheckFree realized $170 million in revenue from B of A in fiscal 2006.
