Tuesday, June 26, 2007

eBilling Adoption Examined

It is approximately 12 years since the Internet and email began its significant impact on our lives. In that time, there is almost no aspect of our daily activities that is not influenced by this. In the USA today, over 80% of all Americans between the age of 10 and 70, access the internet multiples time a week, the vast majority doing so every day, and as high as 35%, many times a day.

A subgroup of internet and email is electronic billing – the ability for a consumer or business with access to the internet, to be able to view and pay their bill or invoice through their personal computer. This is an emerging trend that is still however in its infancy. The majority of consumers, over 95%, still receive almost all of their bills in paper form. Although it is becoming more common to pay some bills either through a bank’s billpay service or at the biller’s own website, the primary driver of electronic billing, that being paper suppression, is not being realized.

There is a massive and growing awareness of the environmental impact of paper production. For every 38,500 bills produced, 1 ton of paper is used, 2 tons of trees are destroyed, 16,450 gallons of water is used, 1,941 pounds of solid waste is generated, 60 pounds of air emissions are spewed out and 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are emitted. (www.papercalculator.org) Billers in the USA for example, produce (at a minimum) 14 to 16 pieces of paper and as many envelopes, per customer per annum. That is 7,5 million pieces of paper per year for a mid market biller with 500 000 customers, or in green terms, 400 tons of trees…

Let’s take a moment to examine why that is:

  • Right now, the consumer does not need to do anything; the paper bill arrives without them having to perform any action. It is the way it has happened all of their lives and there is currently no compelling reason to do it any other way.
  • The electronic billing offerings that are prevalent in this industry (in the USA) all involve the following:
  1. The utility needs to, and in most cases has, built a self-service website. I.E.: a location on the internet where a consumer can go and view and pay their bill.
  2. However, the consumer does not know it is there unless expensive marketing is undertaken.
  3. Sadly, there is neither incentive nor compelling reason to visit these websites. In all cases, it is quicker and more convenient to write a check and drop it in the USPS mail, even at a 41c cost.
  4. The best websites require a consumer to register, choose and remember (yet another) username & password.
  5. They require between 6 to as many as 14 clicks to view & pay the bill.
  6. At very best, it takes three to eight times as long to do so than writing a check.
  7. They require consumers to learn different navigation for each biller’s website.
  8. A copy of the bill is available online, but in every case it is not the first thing that the consumer sees. So the familiarity is lost and the consumer feels that something has been taken away from them.
  9. The result? Even if some do pay online, 95% still get a paper bill too.
  10. To make matters worse, now that the ‘innovators’ and a portion of the ‘early adopters’ are paying online, it is becoming progressively more difficult (and increasingly more expensive) for billers to attract their consumers to their self service portals.
  11. From the biller’s perspective, most are now on second or even third generation websites after three to six years. Hundreds, if not thousands of dollars have been spent on building, servicing & supporting these initiatives and the Return on Investment is nowhere even remotely in sight.

Our take on this? The model is fatally flawed and will not result in significant paper suppression.

The Future of Electronic Billing – Your Inbox



Within the realm of internet driven technology, the single most pervasive application is that of email.

Let's take a few steps back and think about the time before email. There were four kinds of paper mail; Junk mail, Business / work related mail, Personal mail , and of course, your bills.

These days, in the email era, three of the four mail types have made their way directly into your inbox. The one type that is conspicuously missing are your bills. Now why is that? There is no clear answer that we can come to. We can only guess that it was easier for the biller to try and 'pull' you to his website than to electronically deliver you your bill.

However, recent research tells us that the average internet user is spending 96% of his online time handling his email. (Just think about the amount of time you personally spend handling email communication as opposed to visiting websites.)

Billers now have access to efficient systems & technology that securely deliver your bill, and take payment, directly from within your inbox. The difference from a customer's perspective is dramatic: two clicks to view and pay your bill.

E-mail has become the ubiquitous business and personal communication medium. Our take on the future of electronic billing: There is no logical nor practical reason why your bills are not in your inbox, and it is only a matter of time before they are. Billers are going to combine both 'push' and 'pull' Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment strategies to ensure maximum customer adoption.

Imagine getting all your bills directly into your inbox. Imagine that paying each bill took less than 30 seconds. Now that's delivering true electronic billing convenience.



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About Striata

Striata is the global leader in Secure eDocument Delivery.

Striata's Secure eDocument Delivery and Email Bill Presentment & Payment (EBPP) are solution sets - software applications and adoption methodologies - that deliver rapid reduction in operational costs, quicker payments and enhanced customer service by revolutionising the way bills, statements, contracts, policies, annual reports, payslips and other high volume system-generated documents are delivered and paid.

Unlike today's online presentment solutions, which insist on customers visiting and registering at a website, Striata’s complimentary solution (targeting customers still receiving paper) delivers feature-rich, registration-free, navigable and interactive secure email documents directly to their inbox and enables ‘one-click’ electronic payment without them having to visit a single web-page.

This innovative and strategic change from ‘pull’ to ‘push’ dramatically increases customer adoption of electronic communication, allowing Striata’s clients to achieve rapid ROI from their self-service and e-communication investments.

Visit Striata's Global Site.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Carbon Footprint and eBilling

Big business organisations are coming under increasing pressure to reduce carbon gas emissions to contain the greenhouse effect and slow down global warming. An efficient, cost effective and easily implemented way for businesses to play a practical, effective role in carbon reduction is to stop paper billing and adopt the electronic equivalent, eBilling.

The global green movement, driven by mainly young people in Europe, the UK and Australasia, offers some frightening statistics. Three hundred years ago (a miniscule period of time in the Earth's history) the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was just 200 ppm (parts per million).

Today that level has nearly doubled to 380 ppm and over the last 100 years global temperatures have risen by 1ºC. Scientists predict that unless the world co-operates and implements the Kyoto Protocol, carbon levels could reach 500 ppm by 2050 with an average global temperature rise of 3ºC, which will be a turning point for imbalances and snowballing seriously adverse impacts on our society.

Banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, utility service providers, telcos and other organisations with large monthly-billed customer bases can make a significant contribution to carbon emission reductions by implementing electronic billing and turning off their paper stream of invoices and statements wherever possible. Recently, the top-40 listed companies on the JSE participated in a carbon disclosure project (CDP) to establish exactly what impact business practices have on the environment.

There have been reports in local newspapers that international buyers have serious concerns about environmental impact and South African companies will find it more and more difficult to sell their products in world markets. The reports also say that South Africa's carbon dioxide production has more than doubled from 1980 and that local exporters are already being affected by large retailers in the UK and the EU which have implemented carbon labelling. Some EU retailers have begun calling for punitive trade measures to root out environmentally unsustainable production processes and force businesses into action to mitigate their impacts.

There have also been reports that carbon reporting will also increasingly influence investment decisions and some analysts believe that large pension funds could move their funds out of carbon-inefficient investments into stocks that support a sustainable environment.

How can eBilling help?

By converting a large proportion of paper-based communications to secure electronic communications, companies can achieve significant carbon credits.

Lloyds Bank in the UK has identified paper use as one of its four key performance Indicators. The company has a retail customer base of around 17-million people and made some calculations based on the mailing each month of 15-million sheets of paper (bank statements) in15-million paper envelopes.

The bank estimated its paper eBill production cost (including postage, but excluding costs such as rent, staff and power) amounted to 18p (R2.52) per eBill. A maximum of 30% of the customer base could be converted to eBilling (an extremely conservative assumption).

Lloyds established that the annual impact on the environment (limited to the eBill production process, and excluding the delivery of bills) was 4,675 tons of paper used, 9,351 tons of trees destroyed, 306-million litres of water used, 4-million kgs of solid waste produced and almost 11-million kgs of gases emitted.

Based on these estimations, implementation of a secure electronic document delivery solution could result in bottom line savings of £16-million (about R224-million) over five years against set up fees of less than £150 000. Including licence fees, this would result in a return on investment in less than five months.

Apart from the obvious short-term benefits, there could be more significant long-term benefits for companies reducing their carbon outputs. In Europe, companies are already being given carbon credit rewards for doing so.

In the US, the Electronic Payments Association and Javelin Strategy & Research have been promoting online eBill payment and online eBill acceptance as ways for consumers to reduce carbon emissions, waste in landfills and to save trees. Their research revealed that if every American household viewed and paid its bills online, it would reduce solid waste in U.S. landfills by more than 800 000 tons a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.1 million tons.

American banks are actively promoting green consciousness amongst their customer bases by urging them to make payments online. A recent national survey established that 94% of Americans say they are willing to make changes in their lives to help the environment. The survey concluded that going green was no longer just the right thing to do, but is also seen as being very positive for a company's bottom line.

SA appears to be lagging in the global race to go green. In global terms, SA is not a large producer of carbon emissions but, measuring carbon emissions against gross domestic product, it has a dismal footprint. Pressure is mounting to improve that status and Johannesburg is one of 30 cities worldwide whose mayors are campaigning to encourage national governments to support city leaders in combating climate change.

eBilling is proving a fast, convenient and environmentally friendly payment option worldwide which achieves results. For every 38 500 bills produced, a ton of paper is used, two tons of trees are destroyed, 65 000 litres of water is used and 2 500kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. By implementing eBilling, not only are costs reduced but the impact on the environment is dramatically curtailed.

If you would like to calculate your personal carbon footprint, this is an interesting calculator.



---------------------------------------------------------------

About Striata

Striata is the global leader in Secure eDocument Delivery.

Striata's Secure eDocument Delivery and Email Bill Presentment & Payment (EBPP) are solution sets - software applications and adoption methodologies - that deliver rapid reduction in operational costs, quicker payments and enhanced customer service by revolutionising the way bills, statements, contracts, policies, annual reports, payslips and other high volume system-generated documents are delivered and paid.

Unlike today's online presentment solutions, which insist on customers visiting and registering at a website, Striata’s complimentary solution (targeting customers still receiving paper) delivers feature-rich, registration-free, navigable and interactive secure email documents directly to their inbox and enables ‘one-click’ electronic payment without them having to visit a single web-page.

This innovative and strategic change from ‘pull’ to ‘push’ dramatically increases customer adoption of electronic communication, allowing Striata’s clients to achieve rapid ROI from their self-service and e-communication investments.

Visit Striata's Global Site.