BPAY View reached its milestone one-millionth active registration on 21 May 2009, evidence that the service has now become entrenched in the minds and lives of Australian bill payers.

Despite modest beginnings, BPAY's e-presentment service has seen rapid growth over the past 12 months, recording a 130 per cent increase in registrations since June 2008. Over 480,000 bills were presented via BPAY View in May 2009 alone, representing an increase of 230,000 monthly presentments compared to the same time last year.

Recent strong growth in registration numbers for the service has been driven by the recent upswing in the number of Billers offering the service. Launched with just four Billers in 2002, BPAY View now supports e-presentation for 27 Billers across 41 Biller Codes.

The benefits of BPAY View for Billers are multi-faceted. As well as providing greater administrative efficiency and the associated cost reduction of e-commerce, the e-system provides Billers with a central access point to online customers, with many users clicking through from their electronic bill direct to the Biller's website site.

The service also helps to improve the customer service proposition, thanks to growing customer preference to receive bills online rather than through the post.

"The ability to receive bills online just makes life easier," said Rhonda L'Estrange, the lucky winner of the BPAY View 'Bill Break' promotion as the millionth active BPAY View registration, which entitles her to have up to $5,000 worth of BPAY View registered bills paid for one year.

"Its simple to sign up, as registration is done through your internet banking site, and means you no longer have to worry about losing bills or forgetting to make bill payments."

"It's just a really smart system that helps you keep on top of bills wherever you are, so you don't have to worry about missing payments even when you're away from home" she said.

From a 'green perspective' the BPAY View service helps Billers to meet their environmental objectives by facilitating significant paper, ink and postage savings. Thanks to BPAY View, Australian Billers and their customers have already helped to save over 100 tonnes of paper, equivalent to more than 17 million pieces of paper and 11.2 million envelopes.

When implementing electronic presentment services, Billers can choose one of two electronic options.

1. Biller Direct – customers register to receive their electronic bill direct from the individual Biller site
2. Aggregation Service - customers register to receive all registered electronic bills from the one online area, most commonly their Internet banking site. BPAY View is an example of an aggregation service.

Research from the US indicates that customers prefer to receive electronic bills at their existing online banking site¹, with predictions that over the next two years growth in presentment via bank sites will be double that of Biller direct sites².

However the two services do not have to act in competition, with research also showing that 72 per cent of customers registered for e-presentment via their Internet banking site also regularly visit the Biller's own website¹.

By offering e-presentment via both your own site and an aggregation site such as BPAY View, Billers can ensure they meet their online audience at their preferred point of contact and gain maximum registration for electronic bill presentment¹. The use of an aggregation site also provides an additional 'recruitment' channel to attract consumers to the Biller site, and gives you the opportunity to leverage the e-billing marketing done by the financial institution².

¹CheckFree Research Services, Understanding and Driving Consumer Adoption of E-Bills: Enabling Biller Organisations to Push for Paperless Billing, May 2007

² CheckFree Research Services, Best Practices to Help Billers Drive Consumer Adoption of Paperless E-Bills: Increase E-Bill Usage While Increasing Customer Satisfaction, May 2008.

In the last few years, BPAY has been looking at ways to expand access of the BPAY service to allow BPAY payments to be made from organizations that hold value accounts for customers but are not Authorised Deposit Taking Institutions (ADIs), such as church funds or credit providers. March 2009 marked two years since BPAY first introduced PIMs (Payer Institution Members), a new level of Scheme membership for these organizations.

BPAY currently has 13 live PIMs, with another six due to come on stream in August. This number far exceeds initial BPAY targets, which aimed for a total of six PIMs online within two years.

PIMs membership is open to a broad scope of organizations. PIMs that are live include church funds, mortgage originators and credit providers.

Payments made from PIMs have grown steadily over the past 12 months, increasing by 4,000 payments per month since June 2008. In April 2009 alone, over 20,000 BPAY payments worth more than $20 million were made via PIMs.

As with making a BPAY payment through a financial institution, customers can make any type of BPAY payment from a PIM, including credit card bills, council rates, household bills and even B2B payments.

PIMs benefit Billers in a number of ways, most noticeably by increasing the amount of consumers able to access and make payments via BPAY. Thanks to PIMs, Biller payments can also be made from a greater number of locations and types of funds.

The introduction of PIM membership was driven by BPAY's member organisations, after the identification of an opportunity to improve the Scheme. BPAY continually reviews its systems and organisational structure in order to maintain the highest standard of service, and welcomes input from all Billers on ways in which the Scheme can be improved.

Having recently achieved its one-millionth active registration, BPAY View is increasing its presence among electronic bill payment services and is fast becoming the payment choice for many Australians. A 130 per cent increase in registrations since June 2008 is evidence that more consumers are making the switch.

Among them are a growing number of EnergyAustralia customers.

As one of Australia's largest energy suppliers, providing electricity and gas to over 1.6 million homes and businesses across the country,  EnergyAustralia knows what it takes to be an industry leader. Its success attributes to the organisation's total focus of meeting customer needs and a commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to help protect the environment.   Both these considerations were a major reason for implementing the BPAY View service in September 2007.

Since first offering BPAY View to its customers, the number of registrants significantly increased from 4,000 in 2007 to more than 15,000 registered customers in 2009. Neil Fathulla, EnergyAustralia's Operations Manager, attributes this growth to greater consumer trust and security in the BPAY brand, an increased awareness of the environmental benefits of a paperless bill system and an overall appeal of having an aggregated banking site from where customers can pay all their bills.

EnergyAustralia worked closely with the BPAY team to introduce the BPAY View system into its organisation and make sure the transition was as smooth and effortless as possible. According to Mr Fathulla, "We knew when we received no feedback or complaints that the new e-presentment system was a success."

Mr Fathulla states the advantages of BPAY View are two-fold in that they benefit both Billers and consumers. EnergyAustralia says BPAY View's main benefits to the company are that it lowers its costs, gives customers greater choice and control when paying their bills and is aligned with the company's sustainability goals.  For customers it's about greater choice when paying bills, more control over their finances and greater convenience.

The results of BPAY's 2008 annual Usage and Attitude Study show that BPAY remains the preferred choice for Australian bill payers.

As an alternate form of electronic funds transfer (EFT), direct debit does share some similarities with BPAY. However there are a number of key differences separating the two, most significantly related to core customer benefits of control, flexibility and security.

The table below provides a broad comparison of the two payment methods.

Billers offering a range of payment options for customers, including BPAY and direct debit ensure that their customers have all the options they need to make the right payment choice for every bill.