ISP drives e-billing in Bahrain

Middle East Internet service provider, Batelco, is rolling out an e-billing service in Bahrain, claiming it's the first company in the region to send electronic bills directly to its customers' e-mail accounts, reports Gulf Daily News.

The free service allows customers to access their bills online at anytime and receive their monthly bills directly in their e-mail account.

Batelco group GM for media and government relations, Ahmed Al Janahi, says: “We have introduced e-billing to meet the demand from customers. This has been one of the most requested services due to the increasing popularity of electronic services which are easy to use, convenient and environment-friendly.”

Canadian police are investigating a case where a hacker broke into 179 000 Toronto Hydro accounts via an e-billing system, says CityNews.

The company claims it noticed unusual activity in its e-billing system and found someone had accessed files containing customers' names, addresses and account numbers.

The fear now is that the offender may contact those customers in an attempt to obtain further personal or credit card information. Toronto Hydro stresses it would never contact customers by phone or door-to-door to confirm the accuracy of information.

Mumbai-based EBS, an online payment solutions company, is working on a mobile billing solution for the travel trade industry, states Travel Biz Monitor.

The company aims to roll out a mobile commerce payment gateway for its clients by end of this year which will be available for over 1 000 hospitality and travel trade clients based in India.

Priti Shah, VP of e-commerce for EBS, says: “With improving technology penetration in Indian cities and increasing number of people opting for online payments, we see a huge potential in mobile payments solution.”