For years, consumers have been able to send paymentselectronically to friends or family members via an email address orcell phone number. Now companies are starting to catch up. Lastmonth, Bank of America Merrill Lynch rolled out a product called Digital Disbursements that letscompanies substitute such payments for checks, and Fiserv announceda business version of its person-to-person payment product,Popmoney.

The new offerings are seen as a way for organizations to moreeasily and cheaply make a range of disbursements to consumers.Possible uses include companies paying rebates and insuranceclaims, companies refunding overpayments, and governments dolingout tax refunds.

An Aite Group survey conducted in 2012 suggests there's a considerableopportunity in this area. Working from data that it gathered bysurveying 1,115 U.S. consumers, Aite estimated that U.S. companiesmade $2 trillion worth of disbursements to consumers in 2011, whilegovernment entities paid out $1 trillion.