7-Eleven Inc., expanding on its terminal-based foray into consumer financial services, said Wednesday that it will add bill payment service to its Vcom kiosks - and charge people up to $1.50 for each bill they pay.
Among the nonbanks that have vowed to stake claims in the banking and payments businesses, the convenience store chain seems to have distinguished itself with its aggressive follow-through.
It has been deploying the ATM-like Vcoms in new markets at a steady clip - it formally unveiled them in Los Angeles on Tuesday and in Baltimore last week. And it is promoting a reloadable Convenience Card, introduced in February, that can store up to $50 and comes in four colorful designs.
7-Eleven, of Dallas, said Wednesday that it had teamed up for electronic bill payment with e-Money Systems Inc. of Tulsa, a bill payment aggregator that contracts with billers, mostly utilities. Starting in August or September, people will be able to use the Vcom terminals to pay their bills using cash, credit cards, debit cards, or money orders. Eventually they'll be able to use the Convenience Cards too, 7-Eleven said.
"We'll focus on the major utility bills in the area - gas, power, water - and we'll be expanding that to cable bills" and other monthly payments, said Jay Giesen, the vice president and general manager for 7-Eleven's Vcom, in a telephone interview.
In a press release Mr. Giesen said that customers told the company in focus groups last year that they wanted to cash their paychecks and pay their bills at the same time.
"7-Eleven created Vcom to provide consumers around-the-clock access to products and services not traditionally found in convenient locations," he said in the press release. "With Vcom, billers can offer a convenient and efficient payment option to their cash customers who can pay bills at the last minute, perhaps avoiding discontinuation of services."
e-Money's service, called ChoicePay, can present bill totals and due dates from certain billing companies. e-Money will contract with "virtually any type of finance company if it's a high volume, repetitive bill, including insurance companies, credit card providers, telecoms, and companies that offer mortgage and auto loans," said Tim Neese, its vice president of business development.
e-Money paid a fee, the size of which it declined to disclose, to work with 7-Eleven. But it will also reap much of the per-transaction charge, said Mr. Neese. He said he had approached 7-Eleven to offer the service.
Vcoms, which are built by NCR Corp. and use American Express Co. for ATM services, are more versatile than automated teller machines. Customers can place money orders through Western Union, a subsidiary of First Data Corp.; cash checks through Certegy Check Services; and review and pay their Verizon residential bills and order additional phone services.
Another Western Union service that Vcoms offer, QuickCollect, enables people to pay bills quickly if they are about to be late with a payment, but the fee is $10 to $12. ChoicePay will be cheaper and will give consumers many more billers to choose from, but the payments will not post for a day or two.
The ChoicePay option will become one of many icons on the Vcom screen. Customers who click on it will be led to a screen that shows all of the billers connected to the system in that particular geographic region. Customers can select billers, enter the account numbers, and choose how they want to pay and how much.
So far 7-Eleven has deployed about 940 Vcoms in 13 states and Washington, D.C. Though the "grand opening" for the Los Angeles Vcoms was this week, the company has already deployed 140 of them in the city, Mr. Giesen said.
Elsewhere, in places where Vcoms have been available for a while, use has been surging, he said.
"We're extremely excited about how it's moving along," Mr. Giesen said. Originally, he said, Vcoms were installed to free store clerks from handling money orders, but they have come to offer many other benefits, including selling more 7-Eleven products.
"We're seeing double-digit growth in transaction volume" with all the products available on the machine, he said.
Mr. Giesen said 7-Eleven intends to select at least one bank partner for the Vcom program to handle cash and check deposits and offer savings accounts. The Vcoms are already equipped with the technology that would let them take images of checks. He said the retailer is in talks with some national and regional banks.
