BPAY View Q&A's for Billers
What is BPAY View?
BPAY View is a bill presentment service that enables your customers to receive and view bills electronically in the secure environment of their Internet banking site.
What are the benefits for my business by offering BPAY View as a bill presentment option?
BPAY View allows billers to cut costs, streamline processes and maintain control, all while improving service and relationships with customers.
The benefits for your company are:
Cutting costs: the electronic delivery of bills allows BPAY View billers to significantly reduce postage and printing costs associated with paper bills. More importantly, call centre enquiries related to billing are also reduced if you can provide detailed billing service information direct to the customer via your web site.
Improving cash management and credit systems: according to JupiterResearch, use of systems such as BPAY View means billers experience shorter billing cycles as well as better debt recovery (Source: Jupitermedia, Online Bill Viewing and Payment Forecast, 2004-2009). This is because viewing and paying a bill becomes part of the same process, encouraging consumers to pay outstanding bills more quickly.
Improving customer relationships: BPAY View is an ideal starting point for an online relationship with your customer base. The system taps into an important trend in customer relationship marketing: customer self-service. It also allows the customer to choose how and by what method to make a bill payment.
BPAY View is an excellent platform through which to drive traffic to your site and increase interaction with your customers. It then allows for the ability to increase cross selling opportunities, and increase the two-way flow of communication necessary to engender genuine customer loyalty.
At the same time, you retain control over the billing cycle and the content and presentation of bills. Be assured, you maintain ownership of the customer relationship through the BPAY View solution; BPAY View can be thought of as the post box enabling online interaction between customer and biller to take place.
Given BPAY View’s reliance on electronic rather than paper-based bills, the service can also contribute to a biller’s environmental commitments or corporate social responsibility program.
Accessing your customer base efficiently: As BPAY View is offered through Australia’s leading financial institutions, a critical mass of customer demand for the service already exists, making a persuasive business case for implementing BPAY View.
Leveraging the secure environment of financial institution Internet banking sites: Security is a key concern for customers for electronic transactions over the Internet. BPAY View provides your customers with the reassurance that they are transacting within the secure environment of their Internet banking site. As BPAY is part of Internet banking, consumers are also protected by the Electronic Funds Transfer Code of Conduct
What are the benefits for my customers?
Easy access
Customers can access their bills from anywhere in the world, at any time of the day or night through BPAY View on their financial institution’s web site.
View & pay from the one location
Multiple bills can be viewed and paid from the one location, a key advantage which saves customers precious time. Importantly, customers can turn the system on or off at their convenience, ensuring your customers always have choice.
A choice in how to pay
BPAY can still be used to pay bills received via BPAY View or your customers can use any other method you allow.
Helps personal organisation
BPAY View reduces the mail pile up and allows your customers to have a summary of their bills and their due dates in one place.
How does BPAY View work?
Step1. As with your normal billing cycle you send the billing information to your bill service provider (BSP), (or the provider you employ for BPAY View). The summary bill information is then sent to BPAY and forwarded on to the appropriate financial institution.
Step 2. Your customer is alerted by their financial institution that a new bill has arrived normally by email and when they log on to their Internet banking site
Step 3. Once logged on to their Internet banking site your customer is able to view the summary bill at the BPAY View section within the site. Typically, the summary bill includes the name of the biller, a BPAY customer reference number, the amount due and the due date.
Step 4. Your customer can then click to view the detailed bill hosted on your site (or your bill service provider’s (BSP) site). This provides you with the opportunity to drive traffic to your site and allow you to further communicate with your customers.
Step 5. Once the bill has been viewed the customer can then elect to pay or schedule a bill payment through BPAY, or any other payment option you provide
What does BPAY View cost?
You will need to contact your financial institution for more information on the costs related to BPAY View. To find contact details click here.
How do I become a BPAY View Biller?
Becoming a BPAY View biller is a simple process..
1.
Contact your financial institution
2.
Your financial institution and BPAY will work with you and your bill service provider to implement the service.
3.
Implementation and testing will vary but generally can be done within a couple of months.
How long does it take to implement?
Generally implementation only takes a couple of months, as the majority of the work can be completed by your bill service provider (BSP). If you already have your own bill presentment option via your own web site implementation could be even faster.
Is BPAY View compatible with my own presentment site?
BPAY View is compatible with any proprietary presentment option.
As BPAY View provides the summary bill at your customers financial institutions web site and it requires consumers to click through to see the detail bill at your own site, BPAY View can be thought of as another channel directing customers to your own web site.
Do consumers who receive their bills via BPAY View have to pay by BPAY?
No, your customers can use any payment option you provide to them.
However payment via BPAY is an easy and quick option for BPAY View customers as it pre populates the Customer Reference number and biller code (if they click on payment within the BPAY View section of their financial institutions internet banking site.)
What if I am not ready to implement but just want further information on BPAY View and the specific benefits for my company?
If you are just at the point of feeling out the opportunity of electronic bill presentment BPAY will work with you and your financial institution to assess the benefits of implementing BPAY View for your business. Contact your financial institution for more information.
Which financial institutions offer BPAY View to consumers?
BPAY View is currently offered to consumers by 78 of Australia’s leading financial institutions. By mid 2006 the number of financial institutions offering BPAY View will have increased to 105. This represents over 90 % coverage of Australian consumer banking, making a persuasive business case for the implementation of BPAY View.
To see a list of the financial institutions that currently offer BPAY View click here.
How do I promote BPAY View as an option for receiving bills?
All you are required to do is clearly display the BPAY logo, your BPAY View registration number and any information required for registration on your bills or invoices. The BPAY logo and guidelines for use are available for downloading here.
However, we recommend additional promotion to fully explain the benefits of BPAY View to your customers. Please contact BPAY’s marketing department to discuss opportunities for promotion. Alternatively basic flyers which can be dual branded and information about formats and logos can be found on the Marketing Support Page.
Can BPAY View assist in acheiving business objectives around environmental savings?
BPAY View is an enabler for better environmental outcomes - both for Australian consumers and corporations. With the ever-increasing number of Australian households subscribing to an Internet provider, the potential for long term environmental savings of BPAY View is staggering.
- 50 tonnes of paper (1,045 trees)
- 1.35 million litres of water (21 large domestic swimming pools),
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Reduced green house gas emissions by 80 tonnes (equivalent to 17 homes for one year)
Link to Paper Saver Calculator
Can BPAY View help achieve our corporate environmental objectives?
BPAY View is an enabler for better environmental outcomes – both for Australian consumers and corporations. With the ever-increasing number of Australian households subscribing to an Internet provider, the potential for long term environmental savings of BPAY View is staggering.
To place BPAY View within context, consider these facts:
- Since its launch in 2002, BPAY View has helped financial institutions to electronically present 4,158,829 bills
- Conservatively estimating that there is an average of two pages per bill, 8,317,658 pieces of paper have not been distributed via the traditional mail method.
- This equals 16,635 reams of paper that has not been wasted…or 1,000 trees that were not cut down.
These statistics do not take into consideration the energy required or the pollution generated from transporting paper bills across the country on a monthly basis.
