Young Adults Expected To Drive Online Bill PaymentsYoung Adults Expected To Drive Online Bill Payments

Consumers under 30 years old today are expected to be a major driver behind the increase in online bill paying expected over the next five years in the United States, a research firm said Monday.

By 2010, 47 million U.S. households will pay bills online, an increase of 75 percent from the end of last year, Forrester Research said. Fully 20 million more Americans will pay their bills online over the next five years.

Electronic bill payment adoption over the next five years is expected to soar by 219 percent among tech-savvy young adults under 30, the researcher said. Growth among baby boomers, on the other hand, is expected to increase by only 32 percent over the remainder of the decade.

For the older generation, it appears "old habits die hard," and writing checks on the kitchen table each month isn't enough of a hardship to move them online, Forrester said.

Banks, which were generally late in recognizing consumer demand for online banking, are expected to account for half of the market by 2010, with other half controlled by individual vendors offering online billing, such as credit-card companies and cellular-phone carriers.

By the end of the decade, 52 percent of online U.S. households are expected to pay bills online. The annual growth rate of electronic bill presentation and payment, or EBPP, over the next few years is expected to slow to 7 percent in 2010 from 26 percent in 2004.