FPC reveals consumer bill pay white paper

This paper was done in partnership with Glenbrook, and it is part of a three-year, multifaceted industry study consisting of quantitative and qualitative research, launched by the FPC and Glenbrook in 2019. ‘Faster Payments Barometer’ is an online survey of industry professionals, published in Fall 2019, which offered insights across businesses, financial institutions (FIs), and payment providers. Results from the survey indicated that bill pay ranked as one of the top three use cases for both FIs and businesses with nearly 60% of respondents indicating it as a top priority. Given these findings, the FPC and Glenbrook positioned bill pay as the subject for a second round of qualitative research.

The new research paper takes a close look at the two main models that serve the consumer bill pay industry today: 

• The biller direct model where the consumer interacts directly with the biller via the biller’s website or designated physical location;
• The bank bill pay model where the consumer interacts with its online/mobile banking platform to request a payment be sent to the biller’s bank. 

The paper also explores how Request for Payment (RfP) messaging could bring the best of both models together to help drive broader industry adoption, and ultimately transform the bill pay experience. It discusses the various barriers to adoption of faster payments in consumer bill pay including a faster payments ecosystem that is highly fragmented, the business case for billers not being as strong as for FIs, and the need for a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour.