No More Queues With Electronic Bill PaymentRemember the days of the decade of 70s and 80s, when you had to stand in queues for paying your electricity bills, or phone bills, or any other types of bills? If you do, you must be thankful to the technology sector for removing the queue by introduction of electronic bill payment systems and if you do not remember, you must still be thankful that you have the electronic bill payment systems. Electronic Bill Payment systems have made paying bills a breeze. You have to sit in front of your computer, log on to Internet, just some more keystroke and mouse clicks and, whoosh, your work is done! All bill related worries gone. If you are really lucky, your bank must be offering an automated electronic bill payment system where you do not even have to bother about logging into your bank account, all bills are directly paid from your bank account on fixed dates.
In the United States, NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association is a non-profit trade association. It develops business standards related to electronic bill payments and other electronic funds transfer systems. However, you cannot use an electronic bill payment system in USA to pay taxes (both federal and state), payments for collection agencies nor for recurring payments ordered by a court, like divorce settlement or child support because they are not considered bill under the law of the United States. Electronic bill payment is generally of two types. The Bank Aggregator model of electronic bill payment is a very convenient model. In this system of electronic bill payment, the client pays a consolidated sum of money to bank (who acts as an electronic bill payment aggregator) as well as data related to each billing authority. The bank then makes payments for each bill directly, without any intervention from client. The other model of electronic bill payment is the Biller-Direct model. In this approach the consumer receives the bill from billing authority by whatever means the consumer prefers. The consumer then logs into his bank account from the bank website and makes electronic funds transfer to the bill. The bank does not get involved in the Biller Direct approach. However this approach is very complex and confusing, as the customer has to make electronic bill payment of separate bills himself. It requires logging into bank account frequently and if the person keeps on logging into bank accounts from publicly accessible computers, his bank account security gets seriously risked. Electronic bill payment has made our lives easier and paying bills a convenient experience. |