Why Banks and Credit Unions Should Staunch the Outflow of Bill-Pay Transactions to Biller-Direct and Other Nonbank Bill-Pay Sites
Boston, MA (PRWEB) May 01, 2017 -- During the last several years, there has been a steady exodus of electronic bill-payment (bill-pay) transactions from financial institutions in favor of paying the billers directly through digital channels. Mercator Advisory Group’s latest research report, Bill Pay: Fast and Simple Wins, discusses why and how banks and credit unions could staunch this outflow.
Most financial institutions do not charge fees for electronic bill payment despite the expense of maintaining a bill-pay system. That is because consumers expect the service to be included in their monthly checking account fee or in the balances they need to carry. But bill pay is a product that keeps consumers coming back to the financial institutions’ web and mobile sites, which leads to frequent interactions and opportunities for a bank or credit union to communicate information to its customers or members and offer financial advice.
Mercator Advisory Group’s new report provides an understanding of current U.S. bill-pay market, characteristics of bill-pay customers, and tactics being deployed by financial institutions that are interested in keeping and attracting bill-pay transactions in order to retain this critical consumer interaction.
“Billers have done a great job of making paying bills through digital channels as frictionless an activity as possible. Financial institutions need to determine if this trend matters. Bill pay doesn’t have much to offer FIs in terms of revenue, so assessing its value is difficult, but it is a very sticky product,” comments Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group, and author of the report.
Highlights of the report include:
- Overview of the current bill-pay market
- Bill pay’s role in banking relationships
- Mercator Advisory Group proprietary survey data showing U.S. consumers’ bill-pay channel preferences
- Growth of online and mobile channels for bill pay
- Tactics that financial institutions are deploying to retain bill pay customers
This report has 13 pages and 5 exhibits.
Companies mentioned in this report include: Fiserv, PayGo, PayPal, Square Cash, and TIO.
Members of Mercator Advisory Group’s Debit Advisory Service have access to these reports as well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access, and other membership benefits.
For more information and media inquiries, please call Mercator Advisory Group's main line: 1-781-419-1700, send email to media(at)mercatoradvisorygroup(dot)com.
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About Mercator Advisory Group
Mercator Advisory Group is the leading independent research and advisory services firm exclusively focused on the payments and banking industries. We deliver pragmatic and timely research and advice designed to help our clients uncover the most lucrative opportunities to maximize revenue growth and contain costs. Our clients range from the world's largest payment issuers, acquirers, processors, merchants and associations to leading technology providers and investors. Mercator Advisory Group is also the publisher of the online payments and banking news and information portal PaymentsJournal.com.
Karen Yetter, Mercator Advisory Group, http://www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com, +1 (781) 419-1703, [email protected]
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