A Canadian firm that processes e-payments has drawn threats from Canada's largest banks, which say that they have no formal relationship with the company other than the deposit accounts it maintains at each of them.

Furthermore, the banks are demanding that Use My Bank Services Inc. stop using those accounts to process electronic payments. One of them, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, says it will terminate Use My Bank's account at the end of this month.

Use My Bank Services has set up a system that lets consumers use their own banks' electronic bill-pay services to pay for Internet purchases. A key step in this process involves a Web page for Use My Bank with buttons listing each of the six major Canadian banks; clicking on one of them leads to another page where consumers enter a debit card number and password to log on to the appropriate banking service.

David Johnston, a senior vice president for CIBC, said this page implies a relationship between his bank and the payment company, both of which are based in Toronto. "We don't have a relationship with them," he said. Noting the increased use of fraudulent Web sites with appearances that are nearly identical to banking sites, he said CIBC is "very concerned with how our image is represented."

In May the bank barred the Use My Bank servers from accessing the CIBC site. It lifted the ban later that month but sent the payment processor a letter saying that it "will be delisted and therefore will no longer be an available merchant" on CIBC's electronic bill-pay service as of Oct. 31.

Use My Bank originally used each bank's logo on its Web site. But complaints from CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia, and Toronto-Dominion Bank prompted a switch to a plain font that lists only the banks' names.

Use My Bank chief executive Joseph Iuso says his company has a biller account at each bank, just like utilities or credit card issuers. This came through its July merger with Guaranteed Payment Inc., an online biller service provider that has been operating since 1999.

But Carolyn Burke, a senior manager for payment and e-commerce at Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto, said Use My Bank is not a utility or a merchant and is instead acting as a "minibank," an intermediary in the bill-pay function. "This is something that may or may not be appropriate," she said.

Ms. Burke also cited concern over fraud. She said that people who log on to the Royal Bank of Canada site by providing a password to the Use My Bank servers are violating their user agreement. "People shouldn't just go entering that information anywhere," she said. Use My Bank is "asking people to release something that we have asked them to keep confidential."

Jim Van Dyke, the founder of Javelin Strategies and Research in Pleasanton, Calif., said the processor is trying to ride the banks' coattails. "The site gives the impression that the banks are eager to have people move money to commerce sites through Use My Bank, and there doesn't appear to be that kind of formal relationship," he said.

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