Bill payment in the U.S. needs an overhaul as PYMNTS research shows the majority of bill-paying consumers are encountering friction in the process. More than half experienced at least one key pain point in the past 90 days, such as a lack of payment options or security concerns.
These and other findings come from “The One-Stop Bill Pay Playbook: Friction Within the Bill Payment Experience,” a PYMNTS and Mastercard collaboration based on surveys of 2,099 consumers.
Over half of the consumers surveyed want more security, less friction, and more choice in how they pay bills, making the concept of one-stop bill-pay portals increasingly popular.
“One-stop shops can deliver exactly the capabilities that bill-payers rate as most important: security and centralized bill management,” the study states. “Consumers are increasingly prioritizing security when they select bill payment methods. Our study shows that 52% of bill-payers identify security as a key capability in the digital bill payment process, with 20% identifying it as the most important capability.”
While digital bill-pay portals have been available for some time, there’s a legacy aspect to many that is turning consumers off and pushing them to seek new and better ways.
“Looking more closely at the data, we find that consumers who use existing digital bill payment channels still widely report encountering pain points. For example, 22% complained about a lack of features, and 15% about a lack of payment options. That said, bill-payers who primarily use non-digital payment channels, such as phone and physical mail, are even more likely to experience pain points than those who have gone digital,” per the study.
As those numbers also show, “inconvenience” ranks high as well with 22.4% of the sample citing. The cost associated with some digital bill-pay platforms is another major sticking point for consumers, with close to one-third (27.4%) of consumers noting cost as a pain point.
Even so, consumers are eager to use one-stop online bill-pay solutions that do away with these frictions and issues. The data shows that 59% of bill-payers “are open to using a bill payment platform to manage their monthly bills. These respondents identified several key reasons for their interest: 54% said a one-stop shop would make tracking bills easier, 52% said it would make paying bills easier and more convenient, and 50% said it would enable faster payments.”
Get the report: The One-Stop Bill Pay Playbook: Friction Within the Bill Payment Experience
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