SACRAMENTO, Calif.-Electronic bills are suddenly extremely popular among members at The Golden 1 CU here-and the service helps keep fraud at bay.
"We've never seen the type of increase in the penetration of online services that we're seeing with e-bills," said Golden 1 CEO Halleck. "I'm thrilled." Adoption rates shot up more than 120% from the period of July to December, and half of the users have remained active, she added.
That's good news in the fight against fraud, Halleck continued. "We deal constantly with Visa CAMS alerts about compromised accounts. And we want to avoid the manual handling of checks, where someone would see an account and routing number, or checks going through the postal service, where someone has a mailbox unlocked."
The Golden 1's e-bill payments are settled with participating billers using entirely electronic means, through the Automated Clearing House-unlike other bill payments at the CU, which are paid manually, by paper check. The Golden 1 uses the e-bill and bill payment solution provided by CheckFree RXP from Fiserv.
"With e-bills, we can keep members' information protected by our servers, providing thieves with less opportunity to steal identity," Halleck explained. "We'll do anything we can to help members avoid identity theft and keep Golden 1 from having to eat fraud losses."
Pundits agree that people who choose e-bills over paper checks are less likely to become victims of identity theft. But e-bills also allow members more control over their finances, what with the ability to settle some payments in just a day or two.
"When we see the growth in e-bill adoption and an increase in active accounts, we have to attribute it in part to the speed with which the bills can be paid," Halleck said. "If the service isn't quick, people tend to ignore it."
Many of the 300 CUs using the new CheckFree RXP Feature Pack 1 are experiencing similar sky-high adoption rates, according to Fiserv. In part, that's because the feature pack delivers a dramatically different and unique user-interface, according to Geoff Knapp, VP-consumer analytics and marketing, Fiserv Electronic Banking Services.
Payment dates, amounts and calendars are automatically populated for the user, making for a quick and more logical payment interaction, he said. In addition, CheckFree RXP delivers emails and pop-ups to let members know which e-bills are available to view and pay at the credit union's website.
"The convenience to the member was what drove the increase in e-bill subscriptions," Halleck confirmed.
About 450,000 member bills are paid monthly by The Golden 1 CU, and about 85% of those are settled electronically, said Scott Ingram, SVP-marketing. About 35% of online members actively use bill pay. The $7-billion CU started offering CheckFree e-bills in 1997, he said.
E-bills bolster member loyalty, Knapp explained. "Research has consistently shown that as consumers progress from checking their account balances online to paying bills online to signing up for e-bills, their attrition rates drop significantly. Given the challenging economic environment, it's a top priority for credit unions to retain high-value, demand deposit accounts."
"Then, of course, members want to continue to use other Golden 1 products," Halleck said. "They log-in and see that featured CD-special or auto loans. They wouldn't necessarily be aware of our top offerings if they hadn't logged-in to online services."
