Electronic billing comes of age

OneVu started life in 2003 as a joint venture between Voca (formerly BACS Ltd), which processes over 4.5 billion financial transactions each year, and CheckFree Corporation, the global leader in financial electronic commerce services. The project was backed by Voca's 12 shareholding banks, and in 2004 HSBC and LloydsTSB publicly gave their support for developing the service.

Many organisations in the UK had invested heavily in electronic billing systems to enable their consumers to view and pay their bills online. But consumer interest had been low as people found it too time-consuming to log on to multiple websites, so these organisations had failed to reap the rewards of their investment.

The OneVu solution was designed to complement the investment already made. Its strategy was, and still is, to use the banks online portal as the secure access to bills from multiple organisations, thereby increasing the usage of individual electronic billing services and meeting customer demand.

The OneVu service launched at the end of last year with LloydsTSB, and NatWest and RBS started early in 2007. Other banks will be signing up in phases throughout the rest of 2007 and 2008. The solution offers banks the opportunity to add real value to their online service with an increase in website traffic, creating the chance to give existing products and services greater exposure. US research figures from the Bank of America show that electronic billers visit their bank's website 50 times more each year than non-electronic bill users and that customers using these services are 23% less likely to switch banks. Finally the service promotes the benefits of the direct debit, enabling associated efficiencies for the bank and billing organisation.

A host of benefits

Billers can also increase traffic to their website and cut costs by increasing the take-up of electronic billing and shortening the bills-to-payments cycle. Other tangible savings can be made with a reduction in postage and paper. Equally important is the convenience and transparency the solution brings, enabling consumers to resolve queries themselves online, freeing up customer service personnel to move away from complaint handling to profit generating work, such as selling new products or services.

Recent biller research has confirmed that the top two attributes for approving suppliers are easy integration and cost savings. OneVu offers a variety of integration options to meet different requirements for the biller community. It also has a rich functionality to enable the service to be integrated into the banks' on-line offering, with emphasis on security, payments and branding. Connecting with the OneVu service is a low impact project and is designed to complement existing systems while offering valuable marketing opportunities.

The list of billers who have signed up to the service is an impressive one and it includes: Virgin Media, Southern Electric, Scottish Hydro Electric, SWALEC and Atlantic Electric and Gas, South East Water, Anglian Water, Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water, Bristol Water, Colchester Borough Council, EDF Energy Gas,Thames Water, EDF Energy Electricity, Essex and Suffolk Water, Nectar, Northumbrian Water, Southern Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Lloyds Credit Cards, Sainsbury's Energy Gas, Sainsbury's Energy Electricity, Good Energy,TV Licensing and Wessex Water.

Online banking drives change

Miles Quitman, Director at OneVu believes that this number is set to grow considerably: He says: "Electronic billing has been slow to take off in the UK, but a key driver is the fact that there is now an estimated 21 million UK adults with an online bank account today and, according to APACs, this is expected to rise to in excess of 26 million by 2011. With this comes an increasing desire from consumers to do more online, and independent research shows that consolidated electronic billing is a service that consumers who use online banking want now.

"According to recent research byTNS, while the majority of consumers still receive their bills by post, the demand for electronic billing remains constant and there is a strong consumer preference for the service to be available through their existing bank website. In fact, two thirds of respondents stated that they would prefer to access a single, secure site to view and pay their bills as part of an existing online bank account. Presenting bills and processing payments for those bills through the online banks, offers billers access to an audience that is growing rapidly. A large number of forward thinking billing organisations have already responded to this powerful opportunity and many more are set to do so in the near future".