BNY Mellon Unveils E-Bill Tool On RTP Network

BNY Mellon said it has become the first bank to leverage the RTP network to provide businesses with an instant digital bill pay service for customers.

In an announcement emailed to PYMNTS on Wednesday (May 26), the bank said this “pioneering capability” will let companies present digital, real-time bills to their clients using the RTP network run by The Clearing House, and receive instant payments from the customer’s bank.

“This transformational solution promises significant change by delivering ubiquitous 24/7/365 digital capabilities that will improve their end-to-end payment interactions,” BNY Mellon said in the release. “Businesses can leverage real-time integrated messaging through application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide instant, end-to-end straight-through processing from bill presentment to payment to reconciliation.”

The bank said the tool will provide billers with faster collections, lower costs and greater transparency, while offering consumers more convenience and greater control over cash flow. The solution is especially pertinent to businesses with high bill volumes, where “there is a need to quickly and efficiently issue and collect payments,” such as utilities, credit card companies and providers of cable, internet and cell phone service.

The bank, which says it was the originator of the first RTP transaction in 2017, says its new e-bill offering will reach millions of U.S. consumers. BNY Mellon is working with “multiple billers and retail banks” to promote the service, which it plans to roll out on a larger scale in 2022, with production pilots continuing through this year.

BNY Mellon’s announcement arrives amid a fragmented bill payment and presentment landscape. American consumers pay 15 billion bills per year, and as many as 65 percent of them are one-time payments. Roughly three-quarters of those bills get paid through biller websites, which can require customers to go through an unwieldy, confusing process that can leave bills unpaid. To learn more about how organizations are trying to smooth out this landscape, read PYMNTS’ interview with The Clearing House’s Russ Waterhouse.