Consumers, Billers Demand End of Fragmented Bill Payment Experience

Consumers — especially young and affluent consumers — want a single, inclusive, convenient place to see and pay their bills.

Holistic bill pay platforms could make payments less painful for consumers. They allow consumers to organize all bills and use their favorite payment method to pay. Billers benefit by providing consumers with the ability to pay bills how they want, promoting better relationships and streamlining operations.

For “Why Holistic Payment Experiences Will Win the Payment Platform War,” a PYMNTS and Paymentus collaboration, we surveyed 2,099 consumers and 400 executives about their perceptions of the current state of the bill pay experience.

Key findings from the report include the following:

• Consumers prefer to pay their bills using billers’ websites and banks’ bill payment systems.

While two-thirds of billers offer website payments, just 40% of billers allow consumers to use their banks’ systems. The most popular way consumers make payments is by using the billers’ website or a bank’s payment system. Surprisingly, we found that baby boomers and seniors were the most likely to prefer these methods.

Nonetheless, consumers have many payment preferences, and billers must accommodate all methods for payment systems to be truly inclusive and successful.

• The more bills customers pay using different platforms, the more likely they will experience multiple pain points and report that paying bills is complicated or inconvenient.

The more issues consumers face in the bill pay experience, the more they become interested in a solution to address frictions. PYMNTS’ data finds that 62% of consumers who experienced multiple pain points paying bills in the last three months say they would want to access a holistic bill payment platform.

• Inclusive payments are a top priority for consumers when paying bills.

One-stop bill pay services could improve customers’ experiences and billers’ processes by replacing cobbled-together payment systems.

Twenty-two percent of consumers say having a variety of payment options is highly desirable in a comprehensive bill pay service. One-quarter of consumers are interested because it offers an easy and convenient way to pay bills. This share increases to 30% among consumers who live paycheck to paycheck with issues paying bills.

Whether consumers can make inclusive bill payments how they want may make or break businesses navigating a challenging economic environment. Download the report to learn how bill pay platforms can improve consumer payments.