Electronic billing

Electronic billing or electronic bill payment and presentment, is when a company, organization, or group sends its bills over the internet, and customers pay the bills electronically.[1]

History

The Council for Electronic Billing and Payment of the National Automated Clearing House Association is credited with broadly promoting and communicating various forms of electronic billing in the USA. Certain electronic billing applications also provide the ability to electronically settle payment for goods or services. Customers of banks and billing companies can utilize the internet or telecommunications to conveniently remit payment or access billing information. The service is also supported by customer service representatives (CSRs), which may be contacted directly by the consumer to facilitate payments or receive general assistance and answer questions. It can produce substantial savings to traditional print & mail billing and payment remittance, and as an added benefit results in a significant reduction in the use of paper.

Different Types

Parties involved

Billers, bankers, aggregators and consolidators can play various roles in the overall process. Once roles are defined, it is easier to identify which model is most appropriate for the client's strategy. Billers may also implement more than one model in order to best serve their clients. Because the industry is continuously changing and redefining, the options and opportunities will continue to expand.

NACHA

NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association is a not-for-profit trade association that develops operating rules and business practices for the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network and for other areas of electronic payments. NACHA activities and initiatives facilitate the adoption of electronic payments in the areas of Internet commerce, electronic bill payment and presentment, financial electronic data interchange (EDI), international payments, electronic checks, electronic benefits transfer (EBT) and student lending.

To define some guidelines for best practices, NACHA has created the Council for Electronic Billing and Payment of the NACHA InteroperaBILL Initiative of the Banking Industry Technology Secretariat (BITS).

Limitations (United States)

Typically, US financial institutions formally prohibit the use of their consumer electronic bill payment systems for payments to certain agencies such as: collection agencies, or recipients of court-ordered payments like child support or alimony. Any organizations or individuals outside of the United States are also usually excluded. Payments to government agencies for utilities such as water are usually permitted.

Electronic bill pay systems fall into two categories, "pay-anyone" services and restricted biller list services. In a pay-anyone service, the provider will facilitate a payment to the payee regardless of whether they have an electronic connection with that payee or not. If they cannot deliver the payment to the payee electronically, they will print and mail a paper check on the payer's behalf. The largest providers of electronic bill pay services can deliver about 80% of their payments electronically, so 20% of payments facilitated by the large pay-anyone services are still made by mailing a paper check to the biller. This is the primary reason why some billers in a pay-anyone service require as much as a 5-day lead time for the payment to reach the payee.

Restricted biller list payment services allow you to pay any biller that is in the provider's network, and in these services where the provider has an electronic relationship with the biller, the payments will be delivered electronically.

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.