Being able to track transactions and obtain receipts for payment is the chief motivation for many consumers choosing to make bill payments through the Web, according to a new online bill-pay survey out today from Billeo.
About three-quarters of the respondents in Santa Clara, CA-based Billeo’s survey cited say they save their online receipts for bill payments, as they carefully track due dates to avoid fees and other penalties (more than half in the survey who said they paid bills online never pay late fees). “In uncertain times, they have the ability to exercise more control over how and when they pay bills, as well as how they track and evaluate expenses,” says Billeo CEO Murali Subbarao, whose firm provides free bill-payment and account password management software directly to consumers and through online-banking partnerships.
The bill-type most often paid by consumers online is the credit card, with an average transaction of $602—with 47 percent of users reporting they pay their balances off each month.
Those cards are often used to pay bills themselves, with up to two-thirds of consumers paying a bill with a credit or debit card. With non-card based online bill pay slowing, says Aite Group senior analyst Ron Shevlin, “banks will find their highest rate of growth in online bill pay from card-based payers.” Those consumers are “relatively affluent, are a low credit risk and actively engaged and loyal to the firms with which they do business,” adds Shevlin.
