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Sunday, July 19, 2020

Bill Pay Wishlist Features – Who will offer me first?


 

            So how do pay your utility bills? The new-fashioned way i.e Digitally via BBPs or the Old-fashioned way i.e Cash or Cheques.

            Like taxes, one cannot escape bill payments.

            The majority of the banks offer 'Bill Pay Module', to their customers. Most of the Banks have tie-ups with Bill Aggregators to process the bill pay services. With the popularity of BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment Services) growing day by day, ‘Bill Pay’, providers can just add BBPS Module on their Net Banking/Mobile Banking.

            Banks and Bill Pay providers can customize the features to be offered to their customers. These features are the differentiators for customers to choose a particular Bill Pay Service Provider.

Bill Pay is a convenient online service that allows registered customers to pay for one’s electricity, telephone (landline and mobile), gas, mutual funds and insurance subscriptions or even taxes in India from the comfort of your home or office at any time of the day or night.

All the customer needs to do is Register a Biller under the Bill Pay Link and choose how he/she would like to pay for this bill.

Depending on the payment solutions offered by the Biller, customers can choose between:

·         One-time Bill Payment – As the name indicates, this is an option to pay a bill only once/

·         AutoPay – As the name indicates, this is where the bill details are saved, and on the presentment of the bill, the bill is paid by debit to the customer’s linked account. This account can be a credit card too.

·         Confirm and Pay – As the name indicates, under this mode on bill presentment, the bill appears on the account holders' net banking/mobile banking app. The account holder can view the bill and confirm /decline the payment.

The above options are almost offered by all the Bill Pay service providers be it a bank or other portals.

            Till date, Bill Pay modules do not offer any in-depth personalization to encourage account holders to migrate all their bill payments to their respective modules.

            New Age Apps i.e Paytm, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, PhonePe, Mobikwik, Freecharge etc  offer cashbacks on bill payments. As the offers keep changing, I am not adding any links to the Apps Pages here.

Please note BBPS enabled billers are the preferred channel. If a biller is on BBPS, the portal/app chooses the BBPS mode only, rather than bill aggregator mode.

            Customers prefer to search for the best possible offers, before paying their bills.  This decreases the stickiness quotient for Bill Pay modules.

            BBPS has revolutionized the Bill Payments infrastructure in India. As more and more billers onboard BBPS, its popularity will still increase.  

            What is my Wishlist from Bill Pay Module providers?

All utility bills have two mandatory dates i.e

Mandatory Date 01) --- Bill Generation Date

Mandatory Date 02) --- Bill Due Date

Normally, the gap between bill generation date and bill due date is 15 days.  Payment after Due Date attracts Late Payment charges

My Wishlist’s revolves around the gap between bill generation date and bill due date.

Eg

Sr No

Utility Provider

Bill Generation Date

Bill Due Date

01)

Electricity

05/07/2020

20/07/2020

02)

Water

10/07/2020

25/07/2020

03)

Landline

01/07/2020

15/07/2020

04)

Mobile Post-paid

12/07/2020

22/07/2020

05)

Credit Card

25/07/2020

10/08/2020

06)

Etc – Insurance Premium,

Demat Account Bill

 

 

 

Wishlist 01) Virtual Utility Bill Accounts – Ability to create virtual utility bill accounts linked to my main bank account. Daily/Weekly  Auto transfer of my Last Bill Amount divided into Day/Week wise.  

Wishlist 02) Early payment bonus – Bill Date is 05/07/2020, Bill Due Date is 20/07/2020. If bill is paid on 07/07/2020 bonus for early payment.

Wishlist 03) Review and Pay – 3 Days before Bill Due date, the bill amount to be debited from my linked bank account / credit card and bill paid. This is a bit different from the ‘Auto Pay’, feature. Under ‘Auto Pay’, the bill is paid as soon as the bill is generated and presented for payment.  

Wishlist 04) Detailed Analysis of Bill – Electricity Bill. Comparison between last 3 months bill, usage pattern, etc. Yes, this is possible with IOT

Wishlist 05) Tips to reduce Bill Amount – Electricity Bill --- Minimise use of Geyser etc to reduce the bill amount.

A detailed explanation of each Wishlist will follow in upcoming posts

So, which Neo Bank/Existing Bank/FinTech App/BBPS App will offer the above Wishlist?

And, if you have any wishes please add them in the comment’s column.

 

 

Semi-Inspiration 1 for this Post:


 

Semi-Inspiration 2 for this Post: Upcoming Workshop on ‘Bill Pay as a Service’.

 

References: Citibank services page @ https://www.online.citibank.co.in/citi-nri/services-paybills.htm

 

           


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