Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
BillingTree Mobile Applications Now Available to Pulaski Electric System Customers
Pulaski Electric System is using BillingTree’s suite of mobile applications for electronic bill notification and payments via SMS/Text capable mobile devices.
The solution developed for Pulaski combines Kaizen Communications’ ability to send SMS/Text bill notifications using Kaizen’s Kpay platform while the payment authorization and settlement is handled by BillingTree.
As part of the new BillingTree/Kaizen partnership, the solution offers a seamless method for billers to notify their customers of a balance due then enables account holders to authorize payment from multiple pre-registered payment forms, including ACH, credit and debit accounts.
”Initially, I expected the 20-30 age group to sign up for the mobile program, but we had customers in their 50s and 60s signing up as well. It has been very well received by our customers. We publicized it through the radio and of our walk-ins the day of the launch, 30% signed up,” stated Daryl Williamson Vice President of Customer Support at Pulaski Electric Systems. “At Pulaski, we provide every avenue possible for the customer to take care of business with 15% of customers accepting bill notifications via the web and 10% of them paying online. We anticipate similar results through the text program.”
Additional components of BillingTree’s new Mobile Solutions Suite include small screen optimized payment forms for web enabled Smart phones and tablets plus the ability to remotely fund pre-paid service accounts within BillingTree’s Pre-FundTM solution.
Pre-Fund, a BillingTree joint solution with Lightstorm Global offers billers a pre-paid alternative to extending short term credit for consumption based services such as utilities and elective healthcare. The mobile suite extends to web enabled mobile devices the ability for customers to set up and add funds into earmarked accounts in order to maintain necessary minimum available funds.
The Mobile Suite’s web form optimization enables BillingTree customers utilizing online payment portals to scale for smaller mobile sized screens. The ability to adequately view and populate payment account information on additional resolutions expands the functionality of current payment portals to web connected hand held and tablet devices.
“The rapid mainstream adoption of text messaging and demand for increased mobile commerce alternatives is shifting electronic bill presentment and payment from what previously was managed primarily on the desktop to the handheld device,” said Scott McCollum, BillingTree’s President. “Our Mobile Suite of solutions delivers what many of our customers have been calling for and will continue to expand as mobile device technology evolves.”
BillingTree supplies the leading fully integrated, multi-channel electronic payment platform to a growing list of Industries, including Utilities, such as power, cable, municipal, and phone, as well as Healthcare, Insurance and Subscription-billed services. Benefits of electronic payment solutions include an accelerated availability of consumer funds, reduced costs associated with manual-payment processing, improved cash management, and integrated processing by managing all payments, returns, and corrections through a single portal.