All Electricity Boards please follow the Kerala Model of 5% discount for Online Bill Payments

 

Should all States/UTs follow the Kerala example? 5% Discount for Online Bill of Kerala Electricity Bill Payments

To encourage Digital transactions and eliminate Cash / Cheque transactions, KSEB is offering 5% discount for online bill payments.

The 5% discount is the biggest offer so far offered amongst State Electricity Boards.

Very few state electricity boards offer a discount for online bill payments.

Normally, Payment Apps viz Paytm, Amazon Pay, etc offer cashback for 1^st time users. This attracts users and the users before payment of any electricity bill search Google for cashback offers.

The 5% discount offered by KSEB is in addition to the cashback offered by different payment apps.

The only drawback in Online Bill Payments, if for any reason, stupid or otherwise, the payment gets reversed after some time.

This leads to a very bad customer experience. The reversal is more painful, when the digital bill payment is paid via a third-party bank account or wallet.

BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System) major benefits:

01) Biller’s customers can pay their bills in cash too across numerous touch points. The customers will get instant receipts of the payment. The only pain point is the processing fee per bill, if any charged by the collecting agents. The processing fee may be less as INR5/- . This discourage customers to pay via Cash at BBPS Counters and pay at the Biller’s physical collection only.  

Ideally, customers should not pay more than the bill amount and the processing fees of the BBPS touchpoints should be paid by the biller only.

The billers operating cost of own physical collection centres will be far more as compared to the processing fees paid to BBPS Cash collection touch points.

It would be beneficial to the Utility companies, if they offer 5% discount or cashback for digital payment of bills. It’s a win-win situation for the companies as well as the customers.

Hopefully, other states will follow the Kerala model very soon.

 

Few Examples:

Karnataka BESCOM statement dt. 16^th February 2015.

The honourable KERC has approved a rebate of .25% on the bill for those consumers who pay their bill through ECS. Moreover, ECS consumers will not be on the disconnection list. Consumers account will be debited only on the due date and not before that.

 

Reference Articles:

Watch the video of Kerala State Electricity Board 5% Cashback Offer|Electricity Bill Payment Online @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWrrBvCaL8E

KSEB not to cut off connections over non payment of bill; to levy penalty instead @ https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/kseb-not-to-cut-off-connections-over-non-payment-of-bill-to-levy-penalty-instead-1.5015971

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12.69 lakh people who paid the electricity bill online for the first time got 6.05 crore cash back

12.69 lakh consumers got 5 % cash back announced by KSEB for the first time to pay the electricity bill online. From May to August, a total of 6.05 crore rupees was given for cashback in this way.

In May, 6,78,162 people, 1,74,614 in June, 2,11,984 in July, and 2,04,262 in August paid the electricity bill for the first time using online payment system.

5 % cash back offer for first time online payment available till 2020 December 31

 

Unquote

 

National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) - Acceptance of NEFT inward for credit to Loan Accounts

Reserve Bank of India, vide Notification No.RBI/2011-2012/496, DPSS (CO) EPPD No.1894/04.03.01/2011-12, has advised all Banks to accept Loan Credits via NEFT also.

This advisory was necessitated as RBI had received some complaints from customers regarding non-acceptance of NEFT for credit to loan accounts, which was causing inconvenience to the Loan Customers.

As the Banks were willingly taking ECS (Dr) as one of the modes for the repayment and NEFT also being an electronic transfer mode, Banks have been advised to allow the customers to choose NEFT also as one of the electronic modes of making payment towards loan EMIs / repayments etc.

5 reasons as to why do Banks not prefer NEFT Credits to Loan Accounts?

1. Loan Accounts are not part of the Core Banking System, hence, real-time verification of Loan Account Number and customers' name is delayed.

2. Customers might pre-pay the Loan which might not be preferred by Bankers.

3. The actual credit to Loan Accounts might take 2/3 days, in between if the ECS transaction is generated and sent to the Destination Bank, the customers account in the other bank might be debited twice for the same installment. This leads to subsequent customer complaints at a later date.

4. Customers might remit a lesser amount than the Monthly Installment amount, leading to overdue interest being charged in the Loan Accounts. If this is not properly communicated to the Loan customer, there are high chances of customer complaints.

5. If there are multiple credits in a single month, the EMI (Equated Monthly Calculation), will be lopsided, with no clarity.

7 tips to ensure that your NEFT credits to your Loan Account are hassle-free: -

a) Activate your Loan Account in the net banking module.

b) Add the Loan Account as a Payee in your net banking module, funds remitting bank account.

100. Do a test transfer of say Rs10/- and verify the credit in your Loan Account.

d) This will also enable you to know the Lead time between the actual NEFT transfer and the actual Loan Account, which will be useful when transferring the actual payment

e) Once the amount is transferred, inform the details to the customer service email id of the Loan Bank.

f) Verify the credit in your loan account after couple of days.

g) In case of any doubt, immediately mail/lodge query with the respective Loan Bank.

107+ Banks are on NEFT platform, with 2,16+crs transactions being put through the same.

Well, apart from Banks, there are other financial institutions which disburse Loans and collect the repayments through ECS(DR). Trust NEFT credits to such Loan Accounts will also be enabled soon.