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Con Edison Media Relations
Contact: Michael Spall
Telephone: (212) 460-4111

For Immediate Release: October 15, 1998

CON EDISON TEAMS WITH MICROSOFT AND FIRST DATA FOR ONLINE BILLING - SERVICE JOINS OTHER SUCCESSFUL E-BILL OPTIONS FOR CON EDISON CUSTOMERS

Beginning this week, 20 Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) customers can leave their utility bills unopened. Instead, they will find them in their entirety online at http://www.msfdc.com. By simply reading the bills and paying them in one easy step from their PCs, customers can avoid writing checks, buying stamps and making trips to the mailbox.

The pilot program, which is being conducted in conjunction with TransPoint, Inc., a joint venture of Microsoft and First Data Corporation (MSFDC), is Con Edison's first foray into online bill presentment. The free service is located on a secure web site and joins the company's other paperless payment options: Pay-by-Internet, Pay-by-Phone and Direct Debit, which account for almost three percent of company revenues. The first customers in the pilot are also the company's toughest critics - its own employees, who will provide feedback on the process through year-end.

"Working with TransPoint to present and pay bills online was a natural progression for us after we introduced our successful Internet summary bill payment option last year. This payment option has the potential to reduce billing costs by more than 50 percent over mailed paper bills and will eventually reduce the number of paper bills, which is also environmentally sound," said Dennis Jawor, director of treasury operations for Con Edison. "If we receive positive feedback from users during the pilot, we intend to offer this option to all our customers in the first quarter of 1999," he added.

TransPoint, Inc.'s MSFDC web site offers bank account balance information, a summary of paid and unpaid bills and full bill presentment. Transpoint expects to expand online bill presentment and payment to authorized commercial bank web sites in the near future.

Con Edison is one of the nation's largest utility companies, with more than $7 billion in annual revenues and approximately $15 billion in assets. The company, a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., provides electric, gas and steam service to more than three million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York.