Continual growth in the use of BPAY

BPAY has been widely embraced by the superannuation industry in recent years and is proving to be the payment channel of choice among participants, particularly for retail contributions.

It's no surprise then that the number of BPAY payments made to superannuation billers has been rising steadily in recent years. In 2010, payment volumes to superannuation billers peaked at 207,313, a rise of 228 per cent from the 63,112 payments made in 2006.

There are now more superannuation companies offering BPAY as a payment option, and a greater awareness of BPAY as a method for individuals and small businesses to either top up or pay into superannuation accounts. And for good reason too, according to David D'Eramo, Sector Lead - Superannuation & Funds at Westpac Institutional Bank.

"BPAY has brought significant administrative efficiencies to the industry," he said. "Over the past few years, the superannuation industry has learnt to use the various features of BPAY, and use them well."

BPAY's role in superannuation is two-fold: it's a fast, accurate and simple payment method for individuals and small businesses to make; and for superannuation companies, it makes accepting and reconciling contributions easier than ever before.

"Members have an affinity with BPAY, and they take comfort in the security and strength of the brand," he said. D'Eramo says superannuation companies are also taking full advantage of the many features of BPAY.

"Super providers are using BPAY's Customer Reference Number (CRN) as a highly efficient tool for tracking and allocating contributions made by their members," he said.

When it comes to making a superannuation payment, there are a number of different possibilities - personal, salary sacrifice, voluntary employer, superannuation guarantee and spouse contribution. BPAY's fixed digit mask and customised validation rules not only inform the superannuation company who is making the payment, but also what type of contribution is being made.

According to D'Eramo, this alleviates significant administrative headaches for super funds.

"Administratively, BPAY can provide a true straight-through-processing outcome for superannuation companies. It's a simple one-to-one match between the CRN and the customer's account that assists with streamlining a fund's reporting and legislative obligations," he said.

Critically, unlike cheques and direct debit, BPAY provides cleared funds. "This eliminates the potential issues associated with reversing funds that fail to clear," he said. "It makes BPAY a very controlled and robust payment method."

D'Eramo says Westpac has also noticed that there is growing interest amongst superannuation companies to deliver statements and correspondence via BPAY View.

"The green story is one that has the potential to be quite significant. There are numerous forms and notices associated with superannuation and our funds are starting to look at how they can reduce paper and their carbon footprint," he said.

If you would like to know more about BPAY and superannuation, and our superannuation marketing campaigns, please contact BPAY Marketing on (02) 9646 9222 or email marketing@bpay.com.au.

Making the most of BPAY's Biller Training Tutorials

Has there been a time when you received a payment you were unable to reconcile, and didn't know what to do? Do you want to add a new BPAY payment method for your customers and find out how long it'll take to introduce this change at your bank? Why is it important to tell your Financial Institution if the length of your Customer Reference Numbers ever needed to change?

You'll find the answers to these queries and more in BPAY's Biller Tutorials, available now.

These include the BPAY Biller Getting Started Tutorial for Billers new to the BPAY Scheme, and Managing BPAY Payments Tutorial for existing BPAY Billers.

The Biller Tutorials provide you with comprehensive training support and are an ongoing reference and refresher tool. They are essential to helping you support your customers.

By quickly accessing answers to your queries, you'll be aware of the implications of the changes you want to put in place. At the end of the day, this can prevent any potential problems downstream for your customers.

Both Tutorials include voiceover and subtitles along with full navigation capability.

To access the new Tutorials, please contact your Financial Institution. Alternatively, the Tutorials will be available on the Biller section of the BPAY website, from end September.

For further information and help with training, please contact your Financial Institution in the first instance, or Gill Brown, BPAY Training Manager, at gbrown@bpay.com.au or (02) 9646 9222.

BPAY's upcoming Payments Campaign

Have you ever experienced an all-green traffic light run to work? Had the exact change in your wallet for something you wanted to buy? Turned on the TV just as a movie you'd been dying to see was starting? If only all things in life could be almost too easy - just like using BPAY.

Following on from the success of last year's Almost too Easy campaign and the popularity of the Where's Wally advertising creative, BPAY has decided to run the campaign again from September to November and then again in 2011 from February to March. Last year's campaign exceeded its target by a massive 67 per cent which equates to 370,000 new payments made above the forecast level (over a six month period).

BPAY's 2010 payments campaign will feature Wally, which our research found to be the most engaging creative idea, as well as two new online creative concepts. This campaign aims to increase bill payments by 1,000,000 above forecast (measured over 6 months), gain a greater proportion of monthly bills paid by individuals and maintain brand awareness levels and brand attribute scores against other payment methods. We want to do all this while providing support to as many of our Members and Billers as possible to encourage them to participate in the campaign.

In order to achieve maximum impact, the majority of the campaign budget will be spent on media including online, press and outdoor advertising. An increased component of the online advertising in this campaign will focus on mobile BPAY payments due to the growth of mobile internet banking over the last six months. Our research indicates 35 per cent of 3G mobile phone users would consider making a bill payment via their phone, but just one per cent has actually used BPAY on their phone. BPAY payments can be made using a compatible mobile phone through the mobile internet banking function offered by some financial institutions. Tailored creative executions will also be developed to promote the mobile channel.

The support from Billers and Members during our previous payments campaign was overwhelming, with BPAY's marketing collateral being widely disseminated. The new campaign aims to include even more Billers and Members to achieve maximum exposure. Marketing collateral will include co-branded DL flyers, website banners, posters, IVR scripts, statement messages, newsletter articles and web copy. Billers and Members are encouraged to use the available materials and to contact BPAY Marketing with their suggestions if any additional marketing material is required. If you are not on the list to receive marketing materials and would like to be, please contact Marketing on marketing@bpay.com.au or (02) 9646 9216.

The World's Biggest Most Awesome Waste of Time Competition announces a winner

Have you ever had a crazy dream and wondered what it would be like to see it come to life? 16-year-old Topaz Turkenitz from Melbourne is about to see her wacky daydream become a reality. Topaz took out BPAY's World's Biggest Most Awesome Waste of Time competition with her idea of getting a bunch of cats together, tying a different sounding jingle to each one and letting them loose to make music. An Awesome Waste of Time? The voters on the website thought so!

As outlined in our last newsletter, The World's Most Awesome Waste of Time Competition was conceived to resonate with consumers that BPAY don't normally target directly - 18-25 year olds. It was designed to alert them how much time they can save by paying their bills online quickly, easily and securely with BPAY, leaving them plenty of time to do many more awesome things. The competition videos on our YouTube channel were viewed a combined total of 142,705 times - that's 40,000 new views since the last newsletter. We received a whopping 677 competition entries and over 1300 people voted on their favourite idea out of the top five. It's a huge achievement for Topaz to have come first out of 676 other entries with her Cat Jingle concept. Topaz won a 15" Macbook Pro with Office suite and will be lucky enough to see her daydream made into an awesome video by a professional production house. We'll let them deal with all those musical cats!

Kylie Haugstetter, an astrophysics student from Tasmania was our runner-up with her idea for a life size snakes and ladders game to be played on the side of a building with the roof as the ultimate goal. Kylie won a 32GB iPod touch for this awesome time wasting concept.

We're thrilled to advise that the Biggest Most Awesome Waste of Time competition is a finalist in two categories of the ECHO Awards, the longest established international award which honours excellence in direct marketing. Winners will be announced in October, so keep your fingers crossed until then.

Moving forward, BPAY has been working very hard to make sure Topaz's winning idea becomes a reality. The video has already been produced and is available on the website - be sure to visit the website, www.awesometimewasting.com.au.