Given how much of a no-brainer the move from paper-based billing to e-billing is, it`s still somewhat surprising that it`s not yet taken over the world. Goodbye paper, envelopes, postage and printing. Goodbye never knowing whether the customer has received the bill, or is still at the same address or has had their post box demolished in a freak postal rage incident.
Mike Wright, who heads global e-billing company Striata, says his company started offering e-billing in 2001 and estimated that within 18 months, it would be all over, bar the shouting. Striata and other companies of its era expected the take-up to be massive and rapid, industry consolidation to be quick and efficient, and the buzz to be over and done with in short order. Five years of slow and steady growth later and e-billing is only now beginning to take off in a significant way.
E-procurement, on the other hand, boomed and busted in the short, heady Internet-everything era. It has struggled to regain its footing ever since. Most online exchanges and marketplaces that were set to rearrange global supply chains forever, failed, and scarcely any of the companies driving them have survived (Commerce One being a case in point). Those companies currently involved say e-procurement is taking off again, but predominantly only as part of broader supply chain initiatives among companies that can afford it.
Push me, pull you
Having survived the dot-com bomb relatively unscathed, e-billing is still proving its worth.
"You`re replacing paper with something that can be replicated an infinite number of times, can be re-sent in a heartbeat, tracked and monitored like nothing ever before, and can be stored in the format it was delivered in," says Wright.
The old push versus pull debate has also been settled. Push refers to companies sending an e-mail bill to their customers; pull refers to driving them to the company`s Web site to view their bill.
What`s missing here is a link between the e-bill and e-payment systems.
John Ziniades, CEO, Consology
Previously, organisations would implement a system using one or the other. Today, the technologies work hand-in-hand. Bills are e-mailed to the customer and links in the e-mail direct the user back to the Web site to perform more interactive functions, like analysis. The only inhibitor, notes Wright, is cost, which is why e-billing is not used by everyone.
"E-billing has evolved from static bill presentment to a more interactive medium, providing information beyond the basic invoice," says Kevin Meltzer, business development director of self-service and e-billing company Consology. "All a customer`s information sits on the bill, in one easy-to-use format."
Dubbed customer self-service, the next iteration of e-billing has seen some billers include an "update my details" button on the bill, driving users back to their Web sites to update profile information that it would take the biller time and resources to gather. Billers are also including marketing information, in some cases tailored to each individual client`s preferences. Again, the inhibitor here is cost, and the degree to which a company`s internal systems are integrated.
On the benefit side, beyond pure paper and postage-based cost savings, e-bills drive customers away from call centres, where the majority of queries are invoice and statement related, says Meltzer. This, in turn, he says, results in a better customer experience and an altogether happier customer.
Closing the loop
What`s missing here, says Consology CEO John Ziniades, is a link between the e-bill and e-payment systems. Internet banking adoption rates by consumers and e-billing adoption rates by corporations mean that the time is now right to link up the two, allowing customers to pay their bills in one, easy step.
SA`s banking systems are far more advanced than the US.
Mike Wright, CEO, Striata
"It makes sense for the customer to be able to click a button and have the bill paid," says Wright. "It`s really just a debit pushed through a clearing house - like a one-time debit order." This, of course, is nowhere as easy as it sounds, although Striata does do it in the US where, due to the ongoing dominance of cheque-based payments, the company has seen demand for a more elegant solution.
"We`ve not seen the same demand in SA," notes Wright, "because our banking systems are far more advanced than the US. Here, we have stable, reliable and trusted electronic payment systems, whereas in the US, most people still write cheques."
That said, Bankserv and Striata, along with some of the big four banks, are working to make this a reality. The companies are in the process of developing an exchange that will enable businesses and individuals to make secure electronic payments from within an e-bill, closing the loop mentioned by Ziniades.
Says Wright: "There is a huge opportunity here to set up a world-beating system in co-operation with the major banks and the centralised clearing house. Striata has already been involved in initiatives to bring all of the players together to kick-start the establishment of an exchange facility. Its function is to switch billing and payment data between the billers and the banks, and maintain an audit trail of all of the processes and steps involved in electronic billing and payment.
"The exchange consolidates all of the payments an individual, company or organisation is required to settle, and ensures the details of the creditor and the amount to be paid are displayed for each individual or company," continues Wright.
"As long as the individuals or companies concerned have registered for the facility with their bank, when they log on to their own secure Internet banking facility, they will be able to view their creditors and amounts payable, thus being able to pay their bills online in one transaction. This is a total push solution as the bill is presented, paid and proof of payment is automatically delivered back to the creditor, all electronically. Secure authentication is built in."
The benefits to all parties will be large. Customers` bills will come to them and they will be able to pay them in an instant, effortlessly. "For the banks," says Wright, "the exchange will significantly streamline and ease the payment processing burden. For creditors, the positive aspects of significantly reduced debtors` days are most attractive."
As is to be expected, an initiative of this significance, which requires technological standardisation and the integration of large and complex systems, is not going to happen overnight. What is important is that it is happening, and SA can expect to reap the benefits. This next step marks the maturity of a technology that has benefited from not falling for its own hype. E-billing`s slow and steady growth has allowed its providers to keep pace with changing technology, given the system time to mature before hitting the big adoption curve. There`s a lesson to be learnt in there.
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