Report: Paper Still Plagues Bill Payment Processes for 88% of Utility, Consumer Finance Firms

Keeping billing and payments technologies current is imperative for all businesses, particularly utilities and consumer finance companies, which must address so many of consumers’ daily needs. While these companies have regularly improved and refined their electronic billing and payments systems throughout the years, the pandemic forced them to fast track their adoption of digital payments, as consumers and businesses alike changed the balance of direct contact with the outside world. PYMNTS’ research shows that nearly half of the billing and collections executives at utilities and consumer finance companies believe digitizing their payments will drive growth for the foreseeable future.

These are just a few of the findings outlined in The Digital Payments Edge: How Utilities And Consumer Finance Companies Can Enhance The Bill Payments Experience, a PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide collaboration. The report explores how utilities and consumer finance firms innovate to provide customers with seamless digital billing and payment platforms. We surveyed 207 billing and collections executives from consumer finance and utilities companies generating anywhere from less than $100 million in annual revenue to more than $1 billion from Oct. 26, 2021, to Nov. 19, 2021. The data gathered for this report explains why digitization holds the key to meeting customers’ needs and highlights opportunities for development and investment.

Some additional key findings include:

• Fifty-one percent of billers say it is “very” or “extremely” important to improve digital billing, while 50% say the same for digital payments capabilities. Factoring in the shares of executives who say it is “moderately” important to improve their digital billing (43%) and payments (38%) makes it abundantly clear that companies are overwhelmingly interested in and supportive of digital payments.

• Fifty-three percent of utilities and consumer finance companies can accept and process all their monthly bill payments digitally, but just 12% do so. Utilities and consumer finance companies’ digital processing capacities largely exceed firms’ usage, suggesting that these businesses could significantly improve their efficiency by tapping into this unused capacity.

• Eighty-seven percent of billers expect digitized processes to help them add customers, and 62% say digitization will help them increase revenue from their existing customer bases. They also cite improved operating efficiency (91%), a reduction in collection times (86%) and a better-targeted collections process (82%) as being among the chief improvements they expect to derive from digitized billing and payments processes.

Utilities and consumer finance companies have an opportunity to enhance customers’ satisfaction with their payments experiences by stepping up their investments in digitized billing and payments systems. These companies can partner with third-party providers to supply them with the tools they need to turn their digitization efforts into reality. At the same time, they can identify areas like real-time payments features, digital wallets and other emerging digital payments technologies to capitalize on their untapped processing capacities and position themselves for success in the years ahead.

To learn more about how utilities and consumer finance firms innovate to provide customers with seamless digital billing and payment platforms, download the report.