More consumers are turning to banks' online bill-payment services to better control their finances in the rough economy, according to Fiserv Inc.
The number of people who use consolidated bill payment, such as from online-banking sites, has grown 11%, to 36.4 million this year, from 2009, the Brookfield, Wis., financial technology company said in a report published Sept. 15.
This surpasses the use of automated-debit bill payments, wherein consumers have billers automatically debit their accounts; volume in this category fell 6%, to 31.5 million, Fiserv said.
"Most likely because of the economic squeeze, consumers are looking for ways to organize and track their finances," said Eric Leiserson, a senior research analyst in Fiserv's bill solutions group.
Consumers favor online bill payment over automated debits, including those offered by credit card companies, because they prefer to hold their funds longer and pay when they are ready instead of having funds deducted automatically on a certain date, Leiserson said.
"Consumers are keeping a much closer eye on their finances, either out of necessity or caution," he said.
Sending a bill to a consumer electronically instead of mailing a paper bill is also gaining momentum; 33% of people who pay a bill using an online-banking site also get at least one bill electronically in their e-mail.
That proportion equals 12.1 million households and is up from 24% of consolidated bill-payment users, or 7.8 million households, in 2009, according to Fiserv.
In addition, 34% of respondents who received bills electronically said the service improved their relationship with the biller, and 33% said electronic billing made them less likely to switch to a competitor, which Leiserson said credit card companies should deem important.
Illustrating a possible switch in payment methods that billers may want to flag, 34% of respondents had used a debit or credit card for a one-time payment.
"Cash-flow difficulty is the main driver behind that," Leiserson said, suggesting that these people may have lacked sufficient funds in the account from which they usually pay.
Fiserv surveyed about 2,000 U.S. households online in March for its 2010 Billing Household Survey.
