Bill pay

The number of channels consumers use to pay their bills is unlikely to decrease anytime soon, so billers that are able to check off every bill payment channel will enjoy a competitive advantage, writes Jim Lester, senior vice president of product management and strategy for biller solutions at Fiserv.

Mobile payments, online transactions and electronic billing are all on the rise, according to new analysis from the Federal Reserve.

There is an expanding array of choices to reduce paper checking, add speed and reduce cost from billing.

Contrary to many third-party payment providers' practice of pushing customers to lower-cost payment rails, Regalii wants its end users to pay their bills with credit cards. The goal of this arrangement is, of course, to make money for banks.

As multi-factor identification becomes the norm, biometrics can be one or more steps that consumers can easily execute.

The shape of health care reform is a work in progress politically. But removing paper from billing should be a noncontroversial piece of the solution.

Consumers are worried about paying bills on time and want the convenience of real-time payments, making e-bills an important option for financial institutions.

Hiatus joins a growing market for companies that use payment analysis to help consumers manage and reduce expenses for recurring bills.

PayPal has agreed to acquire TIO Networks, a Canadian company that sells software that powers bill payment processing, particularly for underbanked consumers.

Since the dawn of online bill payment, billers and banks have been waging war to handle the payments on their own sites. At last, a victor may be emerging.

Quicken is working with PayNearMe's Prism RESTful API to allow customers to see real-time transaction data and historical account information from significantly more billers in the Quicken personal finance platform.

Corporate clients are increasingly asking their banks to help digitize back-office processes. Such a move can help both parties save time and money.

Clarity Money, an artificial intelligence-driven payment concierge, launched on Wednesday, a move its founders hope will provide consumers with an advanced financial health tool.

BillGO says it has seen a 65% jump in customers signing up for its bill-pay app since its launch in late October, and it predicts a payment processor partnership with GlobalOnePay will bring scale it hadn't previously enjoyed.

Intuit's personal finance app Mint has launched a bill tracking and payment function to keep customers on top of their bill management.

As subscription services get more complicated, the technology required to send bills, process payments and execute marketing campaigns will become harder to manage.

Machine learning can revolutionize online financial management tools by not only tracking payments, but creating a way to change payment habits in the future, says John Frankel, a founding partner of the New York-based ff Venture Capital.