Are Check Payments Going Away?</h1> <article> <h1>Are Check Payments Going Away?</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 21:20:00 GMT</p> <div><br> <div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #000000;"></span> <div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"></div> <p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #000000;">People are m</span><span style="color: #000000;">a</span><span style="color: #000000;">il</span><span style="color: #000000;">ing less payments every day, opting for online banking and credit card options. But you can't shut down the PO Box yet. How do you manage the costs of the equipment when contracts go up in price and you're rec</span><span style="color: #000000;">eiving less volume?</span></p> </div> </div> <p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #000000;">Writing checks are p</span><span style="color: #000000;">art of our everyday life, right? Think about how often you buy new checks today compared to even 10 years ago. Most people still pay at least one bill a month with a check. There are fewer checks processed every day. Checks are still making the circle through the United States Post Office, onto a truck, airplane, or boat ride and back to your own bank. They can be sent digitally instead. The paper check days are numbered. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">But, they wont disappear overnight. Some private and many Business to Business transactions will stay paper for a long time, say industry experts. They'll get more expesive, yet remain necessary to accept.</span></p> <p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #000000;">Most banks believe the customer would be content with a copy of the cleared check through their online banking services and they are not wrong.</span></p> <p>How can you still receive paper checks and allocate expensive equipment costs, originallydesigned to processes 10x the volume? You have to consolidate payments. There are many organizations consolidating payments to keep people and resources busy. Private lockboxes consolidate area payments and make direct "Image Cash Letter" deposits in your bank. Online banking checks can be sent cost effectively without ever being printed.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8162732/ns/business-online_banking/t/what-store-personal-check/" title="Read More" target="_blank">Read More</a></p> </article> <article> <h1>Don't Ignore Your Online Payments Webpage Costs</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 21:20:00 GMT</p> <p>The design and implementation of your organization’s online payments webpage is completed. Great accomplishment! However, you are now fully aware that the cost of maintaining your payments webpage is not something you can ignore! Is it possible to optimize your payments webpage, releasing I.T. resources and reducing your overall costs?</p> <p>Fortunately, yes! In this article we will give a quick look on how to detect points on your payments webpage that when not optimized can consume resources and increase costs.</p> <h2>Detecting Possible Optimization Points</h2> <p>One of the major keys to optimize your payments webpage is to focus on avoiding incomplete payments. In a perfect world, your webpage should be able to push <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all</span> of your customers to complete their payments on their <span style="text-decoration: underline;">first</span> attempt. This is because incomplete payments consume unnecessary IT resources, generating unnecessary costs. With this in mind, our team at Bill2Pay looked at what inefficiency factors, when corrected are the most productive at improving payment completion rates. We concluded that these factors can be grouped into four different topics:</p> <ul> <li><b>Unnecessary features</b>: Features that don’t push the customer towards completing the payment tends to confuse and make customers quit the payment process, leaving you with an incomplete payment. Make sure you are giving all the customer needs to complete a payment as fast as possible. No more.</li> <li><b>Unintuitive Flow</b>: If making a payment on your webpage is not stepwise and intuitive you will end up with more incomplete payments than you should. Each step should be distinct and intuitive giving your customer only the information he/she needs to complete each step. If your webpage flow is not intuitive, you are getting more incomplete payments than you should.</li> <li><b>Customer Surprises</b>: There is a big difference between “giving information to the customer” and “ensuring the customer understands”. A customer that realizes how much his convenience fee will be only after starting the payment is a big risk of an incomplete payment. The same is true for when a customer “gets” important business rules like “payments after 5 pm take effect the next business day” after they start the payment. Also, if you can’t promptly change the rules text on your website everytime that the rules in your organization changes, you will be losing more payments than you should.</li> <li><b>Poor billing software integration</b>: Does your payments webpage present your customer with the exact amount due, even when the customer is late? Does your payments webpage update your billing system with the payment, saving time and keying errors? Do you have the choice to allow over, under, or only EXACT payments? Is the information timely? If you answered “no” to any of these questions you should plan to optimize your billing software integration as soon as possible.</li> </ul> <h2>The Icing on The Cake</h2> <p>For our grand finale, we have an extra factor that, although not related to payment completion rates, when corrected always brings great results in reducing payment webpages overall costs:</p> <ul> <li><b>PCI Compliance and Maintenance</b>: Hosting your online payments webpage offsite outsources your PCI compliance and server maintenance, releasing resources and reducing costs. Just be sure that you select a good host, one that allows you to perform modifications on your website in the same day.</li> </ul> <h2>The Next Step</h2> Now you have a starting point on where to look for inefficiencies on your payments webpage. Do you have a lot of work to do? Is your payments webpage completely optimized? Checking all the inefficiency factors we mentioned above you will know exactly where you should work to increase the efficiency and reduce the costs on your payments webpage. From then on, it’s all hard work! Don’t be shy to talk to us if you have any questions about this matter. Please feel free to use the comments section below or email us directly at <a href="mailto:info@bill2pay.com">info@bill2pay.com</a>. We’ll be glad to talk to you an answer any questions, no-obligation on your part! </article> <article> <h1>What is EMV and when do we need to start accepting it?</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 21:19:00 GMT</p> <p><strong>EMV</strong> (Europay MasterCard VISA) is used to describe the new types of payment cards which contain a chip so they are more difficult to counterfeit. The U.S. government mandated a move to the physical cards' security standard <em><strong>THIS YEAR</strong></em>. So do you have to change right now?</p> <p>"The count down begins" is what the banking industry is telling us. Large providers and issuers are already planning their roll out later this year with a streamlined path for cardholders in switching their Debit and Credit Cards to ones with the new EMV chip. The cards in payers' wallets are about to be obsolete.</p> <p>Currently, retail shops are not prepared to demand EMV chipped cards to accept payments. EMV will happen, but you won't likely be required to accept them in 2014. The hardware will be required in the future, and your payments provider will need to have hardware, software and a plan to ensure an efficient transition.</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/emv-credit-cards-1.aspx" title="Read More" target="_blank">Read More</a> </span></p> <p> </p> <br> <p> </p> <p> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Wal-Mart sues VISA again: How it affects government payments</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 21:19:00 GMT</p> <p>Over a year ago, convenience fees were enforced strictly by payment cards like VISA. Then a group of large merchants sued VISA over their payments rules and fees. Merchants acheived a positive settlement, and fees and rules started to be re-interpreted. The result was opening up government and some industry for more flexible use of payment card protocols. Now it is happening again. </p> <p>Wal-Mart had opted out of that original settlement, which is now on appeal. Other notable companies who opted out have new lawsuits: Target and Macy’s have proceedings as well.</p> <p>See full story here, or the Wall St. Journal: <a href="http://digitaltransactions.net/news/story/4587" title="http://digitaltransactions.net/news/story/4587" target="_blank">http://digitaltransactions.net/news/story/4587</a></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> </article> <article> <h1>What did the Target payments breach teach us about security?</h1> <p>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 21:18:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="color: #000000;">Storing cardholder data is a tough responsibility. To offer convenience means to also promise security. How can such a huge company with so much sensitive data leave it unencrypted? Accepting payments is rarely an organization's core competency. You have to operate under the stringency and costs of a safe network and database or entrust it to someone who does.</span></p> <p><span style="color: #000000;">Identity fraud is a real problem. Up to 40 million Americans had their debit and credit cards compromised last December at various retail stores. But with the assurance by banks that will either detect fraudulant charges and stop the transaction or refund the customer, you may think you have nothing to worry about. However, even with the assurance you won't lose a significant amount of money, merchants are held accountable for their security.</span></p> <p><a href="http://www.digitaltransactions.net/news/story/4591" title="More information on Target breach fallout" target="_blank">More information on Target breach fallout</a></p> </article> <article> <h1>Bill2Pay upgrades to Single Pass Paper Processing</h1> <p>Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:21:00 GMT</p> <p><strong>With paper processing volumes declining an estimated 4% per year, why would a company invest over $500,000 in new Lockbox equipment?</strong></p> <p>As government and insurance agencies are realizing, their costs for maintenance and support are rising. With the recent "Sunsetting" of the NCR 7780, a staple in remittance processing, many outsourcing decisions are being addressed. The cost of a new machine which is supported by service contracts is an expensive investment for a <span>declining </span>volume of payments.</p> <p>Bill2Pay's reputation as the highest quality, lowest error, and highest satisfaction processor has been building over 19 years. Now, with payments migrating from mailed checks to online banking and other electronic payments, more and more agencies outsource. So although each of our accounts grows smaller every year, there are more cost-conscious agencies coming to us.<br><br><strong>What is the benefit of new technology?</strong></p> <p>More work can be processed with more imaging options. There is little or no need for a "return bag;" which is just more costly shuffling of paper. Exceptions and business rules can be "decisioned" online, on your agency's schedule. And there is more: Single Pass Processing.</p> <p>Give us a call or email and let us tell you about it! </p> </article> <article> <h1>Top Ten Reasons to Outsource Payment Processing</h1> <p>Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:03:00 GMT</p> <h1>Why do Billers Outsource?</h1> <p>Every day more and more billers outsource payment processing. The reduction of operational costs and containment of capital expenditures are classic motivators. However, there are other reasons leading billers to outsource their payment processing. What did these billers discover that made them take the plunge?</p> <h1>A Common Need</h1> <p>At Bill2Pay, it is a part of our business to nurture relationships with a wide spectrum of different biller organizations: Utilities, Insurance Carriers, Tax Collectors, Healthcare, Telecommunications, just to name a few industries. We maintain relationships with organizations of several different sizes, some clients, others non-clients. One common item that all billers have in common is the need to evaluate outsourcing as an option for their payment processing operation.</p> <h1>So Many Questions!</h1> <p>Is outsourcing really the best option for every single biller? Are lay-offs an unavoidable side effect of outsourcing? Is outsourcing really worth all the trouble? What are the pros and cons? These are the questions that spring to mind whenever you consider the option of outsourcing. But what about the answers?</p> <p>During our regular contacts with billers who have outsourced their payment processing, we researched to find out the top reasons these organizations made the decision to outsource. After analysis, we compiled the ten most common reasons why billers decided to outsource their payment processing. The reasons are the following: </p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">1. Payment volume too high (Elevated operational costs)</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">2. Customers demand for multiple payment options</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">3. Reduced staff level vs. higher service expectations</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">4. PCI compliance costs</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">5.Accounting productivity</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">6. Paper check payment volumes decreasing</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">7. Rise in remittance processing equipment expenditures</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">8. Costs of a high remittance processing error rate</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">9. Costs of maintaining remittance processing errors rate low</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">10. Significant Growth Forecasted</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p> <h1>It’s a Tough World Out There</h1> <p>Today’s scenario of a rough economy, fierce competition and record high customer expectations are pushing many biller companies to the edge. Additionally, budget cuts, new regulations and/or changes to regulations can be very demanding for billers as well.</p> <p>Is your organization facing challenges that lead you to ponder the option of outsourcing your payment processing? If the answer to this question is yes, you should review your situation to see how many of the ten reasons to outsource listed above apply to your organization.</p> <p>Also, analyze how strongly these factors are affecting your organization’s bottom line and service levels.</p> <h1>I Want to Know More!</h1> <p>If you would like to get more information about how to evaluate outsourcing, please download Mark Brousseau’s White Paper “<b>Evaluating the Potential of Outsourcing</b>”. Brousseau’s document offers a comprehensive and sound methodology on how to evaluate the option of outsourcing.</p> <p> Alternatively, keep an eye for Bill2Pay’s original and new informational eBook “<b>Bill Payment Outsourcing: is it for you?</b>” In this new eBook, we will delve deeper into the reasons why biller companies are successfully outsourcing their payment processing. We will also include in this eBook information to complete in Mark Brousseau’s white paper and help you to be able to make a more secure and sound evaluation on how much outsourcing can help YOUR organization.</p> <h1>Staying in Touch</h1> <p>Keep tuned to our blog to know exactly when our new eBook is published. Another great idea is to keep tuned to Bill2Pay’s blog. To do so, subscribe to our blog by simply and quickly entering your email at the top right of this page. We will keep your email 100% private and you will receive ONLY notifications of new Bil2Pay blog articles!</p> <p>And last but not least, we would be delighted to read your comments and feedback. Tell us your thoughts about this article and how much you enjoy reading our blog in general: the subjects, how much you agree/disagree with our point of view, what subjects you would like to see in our blog and any questions you may have for us. Please feel free to use the comments sections below. If you prefer you can email us to info@bill2pay.com.</p> <p> </p> <p style="padding-left: 90px;"> <span class="hs-cta-wrapper" id="hs-cta-wrapper-5f2b5b81-e018-4b49-9510-38549a4e8354"> <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-5f2b5b81-e018-4b49-9510-38549a4e8354" id="hs-cta-5f2b5b81-e018-4b49-9510-38549a4e8354"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/download-guide-5-steps-to-reduce-delinquency-rates"></a> </span> <script type="text/javascript"> var s='hubspotutk',r,c=((r=new RegExp('(^|; )'+s+'=([^;]*)').exec(document.cookie))?r[2]:(function(){var c='0123456789abcdef',s=[],i=0;for(i=0;i<32;i++)s[i]=c[Math.floor(Math.random()*0x10)];return s.join('');})()),w=window;w[s]=w[s]||c; (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service-cms2.hubspot.com/cs/loader.js?placement_guid=5f2b5b81-e018-4b49-9510-38549a4e8354&portalId=140583&hsutk=" + encodeURIComponent(c);; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-5f2b5b81-e018-4b49-9510-38549a4e8354").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-5f2b5b81-e018-4b49-9510-38549a4e8354").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span> </p> <p style="padding-left: 90px;"> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Bill2Pay Exhibiting at the 77th Annual NACo Conference and Exposition</h1> <p>Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:00:00 GMT</p> <p>Bill2Pay is proud to announce our participation at the 77<sup>th</sup> Annual NACo Conference and Exposition. Since its foundation in 1935, the <a href="http://www.naco.org/">National Association of Counties</a> provides essential services to the Nation’s 3,068 counties. Today, NACo is the only national association to represent counties in the United States.</p> <p>In August 2006, the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership concluded a four-year study that included NACo as one of the nine remarkable associations in the United States.</p> <p>Every year, a NACo member county hosts the event. This year our host will be <a href="http://www.alleghenycounty.us/"><b><em>Allegheny County, (Pittsburgh) Pennsylvania</em></b></a><em>.</em> The event provides an opportunity for all county leaders and staff to learn, network and guide the direction of the association.</p> <p>The 2012 Annual Conference & Exposition will take place at the great <a href="http://www.pittsburghcc.com/cc/"><b>David L. Lawrence Convention Center</b></a>. This venue was the first convention center in the United States to receive the <em>Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (</em><a href="http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988"><b><em>LEED</em></b></a><em>)</em> by the U.S. Green Building Council.</p> <p>The conference starts on Friday, July 13 with multiple meetings and summits taking place, and then continues on with several workshops covering a large number of topics. The conference concludes on Tuesday, July 17 with the Inaugural Reception at the Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom.</p> <p>In addition to the educational sessions, the event also includes a 150+ booth exhibition floor where exhibitors from around the country will be sharing cost saving tools, services and products with the attendees.</p> <p>You can find Bill2Pay in <strong><a href="http://s36.a2zinc.net/clients/naco2012/naco2012/public/Booth.aspx?IndexInList=13&FromPage=ExhibitorList.aspx&ParentBoothID=&ListByBooth=true&BoothID=104593" title="booth #129" target="_self">booth #129</a></strong>. The Exhibit floor opens on Saturday, July 14 for the Exhibit Hall reception and on Sunday, July 15, and Monday, July 16 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.</p> <p>Here are some useful links for the folks attending the show:</p> <ul> <ul> <li><b><a href="http://www.naco.org/meetings/participate/NACoAnnual/Pages/default.aspx">General information about the event</a></b></li> <li><a href="http://www.naco.org/meetings/participate/NACoAnnual/Documents/Pittsburgh%20Hotel%20Map.pdf"><b>Pittsburgh Hotel Map</b></a></li> <li><a href="http://admin.naco.org/meetings/participate/NACoAnnual/Pages/GettingfromyourHoteltotheConventionCenter.aspx"><b>Getting from your hotel to the convention center</b></a></li> <li><a href="http://admin.naco.org/meetings/participate/NACoAnnual/Documents/Mini%20Me%206-12-12.pdf"><b>Program at a glance</b></a></li> <li><strong><a href="http://admin.naco.org/meetings/participate/NACoAnnual/Documents/2012-WorkshopGrid.pdf" title="Educational Workshop Schedule" target="_self">Educational Workshop Schedule</a></strong></li> <li><a href="http://www.naco.org/meetings/participate/NACoAnnual/Documents/2012-Annual-ConferenceInfo.pdf"><b>Important Conference Information</b></a></li> <li><a href="http://dmcpittsburgh.com/reg_naco12.php"><b>Optional Tours</b></a></li> <li><b><a href="http://admin.naco.org/meetings/participate/WIRConference/Documents/Fun%20Run%20Sign%20Up%20Sheet.pdf">Fun Run/Walk</a></b></li> </ul> </ul> <p><b><a href="http://admin.naco.org/meetings/participate/WIRConference/Documents/Fun%20Run%20Sign%20Up%20Sheet.pdf"></a></b>If you are planning to attend, please be our guest and stop by <strong><a href="http://s36.a2zinc.net/clients/naco2012/naco2012/public/Booth.aspx?IndexInList=13&FromPage=ExhibitorList.aspx&ParentBoothID=&ListByBooth=true&BoothID=104593" title="booth #129" target="_self">booth #129</a></strong>. Kyle Crawford and Renato Lacerda will be glad to enter you into our drawing for an Exclusive Amazon Gift Card and give you a quick glance at our superb and streamlined <b><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/electronic-bill-payment-processing/" title="Electronic Payment Solutions" target="_self">Electronic Payment Solutions</a></b> and our incredibly dynamic and competitive <b><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/Lockbox-Payment-Processing-Services/" title="Remittance Processing Services" target="_self">Remittance Processing Services</a></b>. See you in Pittsburgh!</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" id="hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Top 10 Web Design Directives for Your Online Payments Webpage</h1> <p>Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:05:00 GMT</p> <p><br />Coding/fixing HTML, setting up a host, defining security protocols. These are the website creation activities that you are probably familiar with. But what about verbiage selection, visual programming, optimal user experience? What’s the best way to design your payments webpage?</p> <p>During the years we collected a significant experience on what works best on web design for payments webpages. We concluded that although there’s no cookie cutter formula, there are some key web design elements that can increase the efficiency of your <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/online-solution/" title="online payments webpage" target="_self">online payments webpage</a></strong>. Here are the elements you should focus on when designing you new payments webpage:</p> <h2 style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>1. Branded Website</b></h2> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Use the same visual elements and logo from your main website to assure the website is legitimate and not a faux phishing page.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>2. Stepwise Flow</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Distribute the process of making the payment into easy to complete small steps.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>3. Clear and Dosed Information</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Give the user <span style="text-decoration: underline;">only</span> the necessary information to complete each step, an easy to understand verbiage that is accessible to every user;<span style="color: #008000;"> </span>from the experienced and knowledgeable to the most novice user.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>4. Include an On-Screen & Emailed Receipt</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Communicate clearly to the user that his payment was completed successfully and deliver the payment receipt safely and quickly via email.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>5. Provide a <ins cite="mailto:LBavlsik" datetime="2012-07-02T14:58">“</ins>Surprise<ins cite="mailto:LBavlsik" datetime="2012-07-02T14:58">-</ins>Free<ins cite="mailto:LBavlsik" datetime="2012-07-02T14:58">”</ins> Experience</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Give all critical information about the payment, e.g., amount due, extra fees, convenience fees, <em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">before</span></em> the user starts the payment process.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>6. Avoid Scrolling</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Keep as much content “above the fold” as you can to get better results at attracting and keeping users’ attention.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>7. Keep it Simple and Light</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Your page will load faster in a wider range of devices e.g., smart phones, tablets and older laptop computers.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>8. Use Dark Letters on Light Background</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>It’s easier for the user to read and print.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>9. Avoid Animated Graphics</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>Can be distracting and confused with paid advertising.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>10. Use Bullets</b></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><b></b>When giving multiple point instructions, bulleted lists are easier to follow and understand.</p> <p><em>If you are doing the web design of your online payments webpage internally and don’t have access to a web design professional on your team, you may want to include the web design directives we’ve mentioned in this article in your project.</em></p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" id="hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>My Online Payments Webpage Costs Too Much: Second Part</h1> <p>Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:06:00 GMT</p> <p><br />In the <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/blog/bid/146087/My-Online-Payments-Webpage-Cost-Too-Much" title="previous article about online payments webpage costs" target="_self">first part of our series about online payments webpage costs</a></strong> we discussed how payment completion rates affect payments webpage cost. We also listed the factors that when corrected are the most productive at improving payment completion rates.</p> <p>In today's article we will go over each factor and give you the next step towards figuring out what points on YOUR payments webpage are consuming more IT resources than necessary.</p> <h2>The Four Factors of Incomplete Payments</h2> <p>Without further ado, here are the most common factors that cause incomplete online payments:</p> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li><b>Unnecessary features</b>: Features that don’t push the customer towards completing the payment tend to confuse the costumer and make them quit before completing the payment.</li> <li><b>Unintuitive Flow</b>: Making a payment on your webpage is not step-by-step process that gives the customers only the information they need to complete each step.</li> <li><b>Customer Surprises</b>: Customers don’t understand how much their convenience fee is or “get” important business rules like “payments after 5 pm take effect the next business day” after they start the payment.</li> <li><b>Poor billing software integration</b>: Webpage can’t present to customer the exact amount due when the customer is late. Webpage can’t update your billing system with each payment. You don’t get the choice to allow over, under, or only EXACT payments.</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h2>The Next Step</h2> <p>Now you have a starting point on where to look for inefficiencies on <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/online-solution/" title="your payments webpage" target="_self">your payments webpage</a></strong>. Do you have a lot of work to do? Is your payments webpage completely optimized? By checking you payments webpage for all the factors of incomplete payments we mentioned above you will know exactly where you should work to increase the efficiency and reduce the costs on your payments webpage. From then on, it’s all hard work!</p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis/" title="Don’t be shy to talk to us" target="_self">Don’t be shy to talk to us</a></strong> if you have any questions about this matter. Please feel free to use the comments section below or email us directly at <a href="mailto:info@bill2pay.com">info@bill2pay.com</a>. We’ll be glad to talk to you an answer any questions, no-obligation on your part!</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" id="hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>My Online Payments Webpage Costs Too Much!</h1> <p>Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:03:00 GMT</p> <p><br />The design and implementation of your organization’s <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/online-solution/" title="online payments webpage" target="_self">online payments webpage</a></strong> is completed. Great accomplishment! However, you are now fully aware that the cost of maintaining your payments webpage is not something you can ignore! Is it possible to optimize your payments webpage, releasing I.T. resources and reducing your overall costs?</p> <p>Fortunately, yes! In the first installment of this 2 article series we will give a quick look on how to detect points on your payments webpage that when not optimized can consume resources and increase costs.</p> <p><b>Where Can I Optimize?</b></p> <p>One of the major keys to optimize your payments webpage is to focus on avoiding incomplete payments. In a perfect world, your payments webpage should be able to push <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all</span> of your customers to complete their payments on their <span style="text-decoration: underline;">first</span> attempt. Incomplete payments consume unnecessary IT resources, generating unnecessary costs. With this thought in mind, our team at Bill2Pay looked at what inefficiency factors, when corrected are the most productive at improving payment completion rates. They are: <span style="text-decoration: line-through;"></span></p> <ul> <ul> <li><b>Unnecessary Features</b></li> <li><b>Unintuitive Flow</b></li> <li><b>Customer Surprises</b></li> <li><b>Poor Billing <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/software-integration/" title="Software Integration" target="_self">Software Integration</a></b></li> </ul> </ul> <p><b>An Extra Factor</b></p> <p>There is an extra factor that although not related to payment completions can significantly reduce online payments webpage overall costs:</p> <ul> <ul> <li><b>PCI Compliance and Maintenance: </b>Hosting your online payments webpage offsite outsources your PCI compliance and server maintenance, releasing resources and reducing costs. Just be sure that you select a good host, one that allows you to perform modifications on your payments webpage in the same day.</li> </ul> </ul> <p><b>Don’t Miss Our Next Article!</b></p> <p>We will leave you simmering these thoughts for now. In our next article we will develop on each factor and give you the next step on your quest for payments webpage efficiency. Don’t be shy to talk to us if you have any questions about this matter. Please feel free to use the comments section below or email us directly at <a href="mailto:info@bill2pay.com">info@bill2pay.com</a>. We’ll be glad to talk to you an answer any questions, no-obligation on your part!</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 180px; height: 121px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-6b5a5377-d39a-414c-9c89-7f00f76761e4" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 180px; height: 121px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-6b5a5377-d39a-414c-9c89-7f00f76761e4" id="hs-cta-6b5a5377-d39a-414c-9c89-7f00f76761e4"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=6b5a5377-d39a-414c-9c89-7f00f76761e4"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-6b5a5377-d39a-414c-9c89-7f00f76761e4").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-6b5a5377-d39a-414c-9c89-7f00f76761e4").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Bill2Pay at the 2012 Florida Association of Counties</h1> <p>Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:37:00 GMT</p> <p>Bill2Pay is proud to be part of the 2012 Florida Association of Counties Annual Conference & Educational Exposition. The <strong><a href="http://www.fl-counties.com/" title="Florida Association of Counties" target="_self">Florida Association of Counties</a></strong> has its <strong><a href="http://www.fl-counties.com/pages/About_FAC.aspx" title="mission" target="_self">mission</a></strong> stated as "<em>The Florida Association of Counties helps counties effectively serve and represent Floridians by strengthening and preserving county home rule through advocacy, education and collaboration."</em></p> <p>The 2012 Annual Conference & Educational Exposition will take place in Orange County at the fabulous Orlando World Center Marriott. The event starts on June 19th with an exciting Golf Outing at Hawks Landing Golf Club and closes in great style with the presence of Florida Governor Rick Scott. The governor will deliver a Keynote at the event's closing general session on Friday, June 22nd.</p> <p>The FAC Annual Conference & Educational Exposition is the association's largest event and represents an opportunity for hundreds of commissioners and county staff from across the Florida state to come together for networking and continuing education.</p> <p>In addition to the educational sessions, the event also includes a 100+ booth educational exhibition – with exhibitors from around the country sharing cost saving tools and products with counties.</p> <p> </p> <p>That's where Bill2Pay will participate, at booth #602. The Exhibit floor opens on Wednesday, June 20th and on Thursday, June 21st, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.</p> <p>If you are planning to attend, please be our guest and stop by booth #602. Kyle Crawford and Renato Lacerda will be glad to give you quick glance at our <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/electronic-bill-payment-processing/" title="Superb and streamlined Electronic Payment Solutions" target="_self">Superb and streamlined Electronic Payment Solutions</a><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/electronic-bill-payment-processing/" title="Electronic Payment Solutions" target="_self"></a></strong> and our <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/Lockbox-Payment-Processing-Services/" title="World Class Lockbox Services" target="_self">World Class Lockbox Services</a></strong>, currently the best Lockbox in Florida. See you in Orlando!</p> <p></p> </article> <article> <h1>Ten Tips to Improve Bill Payment Customer Service</h1> <p>Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:22:00 GMT</p> <p>Unlike fishing, playing golf or catching a great movie, paying bills is not a “fun” activity. It’s actually a chore, one that can become annoying whenever an issue with a payment arises. It is perfectly understandable that customers with a payment issue are unhappy and even angry.</p> <p>Diffusing angry customers and fixing the payment issues represents costs. For this reason, billing organizations are in a constant search of ways to avoid payment issues.</p> <p>In response to this need, we compiled a list of the top ten customer service tips for billing companies. These tips will help you to reduce bill payment customer service workload and costs. But before we jump into the action, please allow us to briefly present you the theory behind it. This short explanation will expose to you how powerful and effective our ten tips are!</p> <h1>The Theory</h1> <p>To improve your bill payment customer service you will have to work on three different fronts:</p> <ul> <li>Make it easier and more convenient for you customers to pay their bills on time.</li> <li>Empower and motivate your customer service reps.</li> <li>Understand first-hand your customers’ most common issues.</li> </ul> <p>Doing a great job on all of these three fronts will reduce the number of bill payment calls to your customer service and the time your customer service reps should take to resolve each call (handling time).</p> <p>Your final prize for doing a great job is a reduction of the costs associated with customer service, a reduction in your current delinquency levels and also a drop in the number of partial payments you receive. Awesome, right? That’s the theory. Let’s now take a look at the action you should take in order to get the results we all want.</p> <h1>The Action</h1> <p>Finally! Time to DO! Below are the top ten Bill2Pay tips for you to improve your bill payment customer service:</p> <ol> <li><b>State</b> payment policies in clear easy to read language on your bill and/or you payment website.</li> <li><b>Include</b> a payment FAQ page on your website that’s easy to find and contains accurate and useful information.</li> <li><b>Provide</b> multiple payment options: credit/debit cards, e-Checks , paper checks.</li> <li><b>Provide</b> multiple payment channels: mail-in, walk-in, online, IVR (Interactive Voice Response), texting.</li> <li><b>Offer</b> a recurring payment option and promote it heavily.</li> <li><b>Offer</b> multiple ways to contact customer service if there is an issue: phone, email, live chat.</li> <li><b>Empower</b> your customer service professionals to resolve customer issues within a clearly defined set of business rules.</li> <li><b>Provide</b> continuous training to your customer service team</li> <li><b>Take</b> some calls, answer some emails; stay in touch with your customers and support staff – Understand your customers’ most common pains and think in ways to avoid these pains.</li> <li><b>Make</b> clear that your CSRs (Customer Service Reps) understand that no matter how good they are, it simply not possible to keep 100% of your customers happy 100% of the time.</li> </ol> <h1>Mind to Share?</h1> <p>How many of the tips above are you already putting in practice? We would love to know your results! Please feel free to share your results – or any further question you may have on this issue – on the comments section below or by emailing us at <a href="mailto:marketing@bill2pay.com?subject=My%20Customer%20Service%20Improvement%20Results"><b>marketing@bill2pay.com</b></a>.</p> <p> </p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" id="hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Getting Your Bill Presentment Right</h1> <p>Thu, 31 May 2012 20:30:00 GMT</p> <p>Customers’ demands for multiple payment channels can be a real obstacle to providing prompt access to up-to-date account information. In this scenario, how can you be sure your current bill presentment IS attending ALL your customers’ needs?</p> <p>Today’s article will give you an insight on how to assess the effectiveness of your current bill presentment. We will also guide you through the basic steps to design and implement a bill presentment system that is perfectly suited to your customers’ needs.</p> <h1>Is Your Bill Presentment Adequate?</h1> <p>To access how adequate your current bill presentment is, you may ask yourself two questions:</p> <ol start="1"> <li>What level of bill presentment do I have for each payment channel?</li> <li>What could be done to my current bill presentment process to reduce delinquency, underpayment and late payments in general?</li> </ol> <p>Get clear answers to these questions and write them down. This information will be useful on the next part of our project: getting your bill presentment right!</p> <h1>Designing Your New Bill Presentment</h1> <p>First step is to define your project’s scope, your requirements. To do so, start by defining and writing down these three parameters:</p> <ol> <li><b>Information Freshness Level</b> – How up-to-date must the account information presented to your customers be? What is your customer’s tolerance in this matter? How is the information available to you and your system?</li> <li><b>Information Depth</b> - How much information needs to be conveyed? Do your customers require full account information, just the balance due, or somewhere in between? Find the minimum information depth that will make your customers happy.</li> <li><b>Information Sensitivity</b> – What proof of identity will you require in order to display the account information?</li> </ol> <h1>Passing Out the Hard Hats</h1> <p>Now that your project has a clearly defined scope it’s time it’s time to give everybody involved a hard hat. Be sure that all internal stakeholders in the project are aware of the complexity and costs of designing and implementing your improved bill presentment solution.</p> <h1>Let’s Build!</h1> <p>You should now have all the materials:</p> <ul> <li>What’s missing from your current bill presentment.</li> <li>What can be done with it to reduce delinquency, late payments and underpayments.</li> <li>Your project scope (information freshness (availability), depth and sensitivity)</li> <li>All internal stakeholders are aware of importance, costs and complexity of the project.</li> </ul> <p>It’s construction time!</p> <p>Your final step should be to integrate your payment channel(s) data with your billing system. Thanks to the definitions you made in the first step you know exactly what kind of integration you will need (API or File), how much information you need to bring from the payments channel to the billing channel and what you need to provide a proof of identity interface before displaying account information.</p> <p>You may be able to complete this integration in-house, given you have enough resources and personnel available, but most billing companies find out that it is easier to get external help. If that’s the case, or if you just would like to hear our opinion, please feel free to contact us. We will be glad to discuss the matter with you and provide all the support you may need!</p> <p> </p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" id="hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Automating Your Payment Reconciliation</h1> <p>Tue, 29 May 2012 17:07:00 GMT</p> <p>Your customer demands not only multiple payment options and channels but also prompt access to account status: Balance due, due dates, late fees, etc. To keep your customer satisfied you need to enter all payment information from all different channels into your billing system as quickly and accurately as possible. Manually entering these payments is too slow and prone to errors.</p> <p>An automated interface between every single one of your payment channels and your billing system is a logical solution. But how do you do it?</p> <p>This article will give you an insight on the process of moving from a manual reconciliation – slow and prone to errors – to a fully integrated and automated payment reconciliation system. And hopefully give you a starting point for this project!</p> <h1>Making a Decision</h1> <p>Looking from a high-level perspective, the task is to interface each of your payment channels with your billing system. The first decision you should make is how this interface should work: <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/software-integration/" title="File Integration or Real Time Integration" target="_self"><strong>File Integration or Real Time Integration</strong></a>. Let’s start by looking at the pros and cons of each option:</p> <h1>File Integration</h1> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>Pros</b>: Cost effective.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>Cons</b>: Reconciling can be hours old, to be ensure that ALL your data is fresh you need to synchronize all payment channels files.</p> <h1>Real Time</h1> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>Pros</b>: Payment Data is available to clients/CSRs immediately; Little to no time/accounting personnel demand.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><b>Cons</b>: Requires an API, possibly a different one for each payment channel/vendor, can be costly.</p> <h1>Which one is the BEST option?</h1> <p>The best option varies from case to case. To make a good and sound decision between File Integration or Real Time Integration you should consider your customer’s demands. How fresh does your customers account information need to be? Do your customers demand quick updates? If this is your situation, your best option is Real Time Integration. The extra costs may be justified by the decrease in customer service complaints and customer satisfaction in general. However some markets have more flexibility on how quickly payments need be reflecting on account information. For these situations, file integration may be a cost-savings option.</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" id="hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Phishing in Bill Payment Processing</h1> <p>Thu, 24 May 2012 14:15:00 GMT</p> <h2><b></b></h2> <h2><b>Not a Relaxing Experience</b></h2> <p>Fishing is fun. On the surface, many of us would agree! For many, fishing with family or friends on a dock, boat or shoreline is one of the best social activities that can be experienced. Unfortunately, we are not talking about casting a hook and bait out into the water but about "Phishing". </p> <h2><b>What is “Phishing”?</b></h2> <p><b></b>According to <strong><a href="http://www.techterms.com/definition/phishing" title="techterms.com" target="_blank">techterms.com</a></strong>:</p> <address><em>"Phishing is a con game that scammers use to collect personal information from unsuspecting users”.</em></address> <h2><b>Why Should You Take Phishing Seriously?</b></h2> <p>Any regular internet user should be aware of phishing schemes and take care to spot it. But, why should your organization take care to learn more about phishing?</p> <p>Because, not only do you have to worry about it personally, as a consumer, you also have to protect <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/online-solution/" title="YOUR payments website" target="_self">YOUR payments website</a></strong>.</p> <p>A "phisherman" can easily redirect your consumers to their phishing site, fraudulently representing their page as your company's page. Would you be liable for that fraud?</p> <p>The legal responsibility of phishing in bill payment processing is a polemic subject. However, independently of where responsibility lays, having your customers going through a phishing attack can cause real damage to your organization’s image. Not to mention the lost customer confidence about making payments to you online. Aside from legalities and responsibity, , there is a lot to lose if your customers become victims of Phishing from your payments site.</p> <h2><b>How To Spot “Phishing”</b></h2> <p>Phishing scammers love to use false e-mails that often look surprisingly legitimate. Another phishers’ “hook” of choice is posting fake copies of web pages where you are asked to enter personal information. These pages look real and most are impossible to tell from the original. However, the URL in the address field of these fake pages can tell you if you have been directed to a site that is real or false. For example, if you are visiting a Web page on eBay, the last part of the domain name should end with "<b>ebay.com</b>." Therefore, "http://www.ebay.com" and "http://cgi3.ebay.com" are real Web addresses, but "http://www.ebay.validate-info.com" and "http://ebay.login123.com" are false addresses, which may be used by phishers. If an URL contains an IP address, such as 12.30.229.107, instead of a domain name, you can almost be sure someone is trying to phish for your personal information.</p> <h2><b>Phishing with Friends - Beware of Social Phishing!</b></h2> <p><b></b>So what about the "Social" thing you ask? More and more people are using social websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. to connect to others. Businesses are using these online social interaction trends to benefit from a growing segment where they can gain name recognition and communicate with customers. Of course, the scammers are right behind. Just recently I have received several emails based on LinkedIn that on the surface look legit but just like the example above, the URLs were not part of LinkedIn and lead to malicious content.</p> <h2><b>What You Should Do About it</b></h2> <p><b></b>On your personal level, please be very weary of these types of emails, at work and at home. On your Organization’s level, if you process internally, talk to your payment processing team. Otherwise talk to <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/electronic-processing/" title="your payment processor" target="_self">your payment processor</a></strong> to make sure that all the tools and safeguards possible are in place and actively protecting your customers. Finally, even though there are tools to safeguard you and your customers, the best defense is always to stay aware and alert.</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" id="hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Dominating Walk-In Bill Payment Regulations for Credit/Debit Cards</h1> <p>Tue, 22 May 2012 14:28:00 GMT</p> <h2>Breaking Through the Wall</h2> <p>You decided you need to accept walk-in credit and debit card payments at your counter. Along the way, you hit a big brick wall: VISA/Mastercard regulations and PCI compliance. What’s the best way for you to break through this wall?</p> <p>When it comes to walk-in bill payment regulations for credit/debit cards there are two basic approaches: Do it yourself or hire a qualified bill payment processing company. In this article we will go over each approach so you can decide which one is the best for your organization.</p> <h2>How do Regulations & Compliance Cause Problems?</h2> <p>Let’s start with a quick look on why these two issues are an obstacle:</p> <ul> <ul> <li><b>VISA/Mastercard regulations</b> are very complex, require knowledgeable personnel able to understand them and comply with them. These regulations make charging a convenience fee for in-person credit/debit card payments difficult and impossible in some scenarios.</li> <li><b>PCI Compliance</b> is an ongoing mandatory compliance for any merchant accepting credit/debit card payments. It is complex and becoming and maintaining compliance consumes significant resources from your IT personnel and equipment.</li> </ul> </ul> <h2>Two Different Ways to Break the Same Brick Wall</h2> <p>The first approach is to do it yourself. Let’s take a quick look at it:</p> <ul> <ul> <li><b>On Visa/Mastercard regulations</b> you need an individual with proficiency in laws and regulations compliance. If you have, this process may take some of his/her time initially and every time that there is an update to the regulations. If you don’t have a person with this specific skill set on your staff, DO NOT try to crack this nut in-house! VISA and Mastercard regulations are complex issues. An inexperienced person trying to interpret them can either get you in trouble for breaking one or more rules and/or fail to take advantage of possible loopholes the regulation provides for in your specific case. Both can be expensive.</li> <li><b>On PCI Compliance</b> If you are not already PCI Compliant your IT Department will need to go through the process of earning compliance. Achieving and maintaining PCI Compliance is a complex process that consumes significant - and expensive - IT personnel resources. It is also possible that your IT personnel does not have people with the know-how to go through the certification level you need, leaving you with the prospect of hiring a consultant.</li> </ul> </ul> <p>The second approach is to hire a <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/pos-solution/" title="qualified credit/debit card bill payment processor" target="_self">qualified credit/debit card bill payment processor</a></strong>:</p> <ul> <ul> <li><b>On PCI Compliance</b> a good PCI compliant payment processing company can provide you with a web-based walk-in/counter software system, hosted off-site. This will relieve you from having to become PCI compliant. As an extra benefit, the third party payment processor can host your walk-in/counter application,which can be integrated with your back end system to allow you quicker and more precise daily reconciliations. However, it’s always important to remember that all these benefits are not free: there is a cost to use a third party payment processor that can vary from vendor to vendor. In the vast majority of the cases, this cost should be lower than the costs of becoming and maintaining PCI compliance yourself.</li> <li><b>On Visa Regulations</b> a third party credit/debit card bill payment processing provider must know all the VISA/Mastercard regulations and be VISA compliant themselves. Additionally, the payment processing provider has enough know-how on the regulations to identify which payments you are allowed to take with a visa debit and other cards, in-person, and to charge a convenience fee. Using a convenience fee model is a great way to offset your payment processing costs. You definitely want to be sure that this option is available to you.</li> </ul> </ul> <h2>It’s Time to Make YOUR Decision</h2> <p>Now that you have all the facts and information you can decide which approach is the best fit for your organization. If your best option is to go with a third party bill payment processing company,be sure that all vendors you get a quote from are PCI Level 1 compliant, have a strong history of client retention/satisfaction, are able to flawlessly <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/software-integration/" title="integrate with your back end system" target="_self">integrate with your back end system</a></strong> and offer you open access to real decision makers inside their organization. Please feel free to post any questions or remarks on the comments section below. Good luck!</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" id="hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Reduce the Costs of Offering Online Bill Payments</h1> <p>Thu, 17 May 2012 14:40:00 GMT</p> <p>Your customers require the ability to pay online. You are aware of the costs of PCI compliance and payment website management. So how do you reduce the costs of offering online bill payments? There is a way!</p> <p>Today you will learn a very simple way to avoid the PCI compliance and website management costs from taking payments online. Plus we will give you strategies on how to completely offset costs of an online credit / debit card payment processor. Finally, we have a tip on how to increase accounting efficiency while you are at it! Let’s get started!</p> <h2><strong>A Simple Solution</strong></h2> <p>PCI compliance and maintenance of a payments website can consume a lot of your IT resources. At a high cost! The simplest solution is to outsource your web payments to a PCI Compliant credit / debit card payment processor <strong>who hosts and supports the payments page</strong>. This last part is <strong>very</strong> important for two reasons:</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">• <strong>One</strong> - when a payment processor hosts a payment page, it becomes responsible for the PCI compliance (and liability of card number storage and transmission). <br />• <strong>Two</strong> - a payment processor who provides maintenance for your payments pages releases your own IT from the task.</p> <p>You just killed two birds with one stone! Just make sure that your vendor offers the option of branding your payment page with your logos, rules, and wording. Also, make sure that this vendor is very responsive to your ever changing needs. Do not accept “weeks;” demand days… even 24 hours for minor web updates.</p> <h2><strong>But What About the Payment Processor Costs?</strong></h2> <p>A convenience fee model can offset the credit /debit card costs. There are several confusing rules about convenience fees. Chances are that you will be able to charge a convenience fee. A quality credit /debit card payment processor can advise on your specific operations. Get one who is flexible and listens.</p> <h2>A Grand Finale</h2> <p>For our grand finale, a tip to increase your accounting efficiency while implementing an online bill payment solution from a payment processor: File integration. Your online bill payment processor should offer file integration to provide your customers the option to look up their own account and amount due.. Additionally, this file integration option ensures the payments made online are reconciled to your billing system automatically.</p> <h2>The First Step</h2> <p>Now that you now know a great way to reduce your costs of offering online bill payment to your customers, it’s time to put this knowledge in action. Your first step should be to discuss the possibility of outsourcing your online bill payments system with your IT department. They should be able to give you a more precise insight on how much outsourcing your online bill payments can release your own IT resources. From this point forward it is just a matter of finding your perfect match for a payment processor.</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 599px; height: 178px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a" id="hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-processing-analysis"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-f339ed44-e923-45f4-8201-58423f0faa5a").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Learn to Evaluate Your Need for an IVR Payment System</h1> <p>Tue, 15 May 2012 14:55:00 GMT</p> <b></b> <p>In these days when Web and Mobile Texting payments are the rage, IVR (Interactive Voice Response) seems to be a thing of the past. But is it really? How does a billing department safely evaluate if the costs of implementing/maintaining an IVR payment system are justifiable?</p> <p>In today’s article you will learn not only how to evaluate your need for an IVR system, and if the best choice for you is onsite or hosted IVR, but we will also show you a great (and simple)way to offset IVR costs.</p> <p><b>A Simple Way to Evaluate Your Needs</b></p> <p>Evaluating the need for a payments IVR system requires an assessment of three elements of your business: customer satisfaction, delinquency rates and how overloaded with credit/debit card payments your walk-in / counter locations are.</p> <p>So let’s take a quick high-level look on how to analyze each of these three components:</p> <p><b>Customer Satisfaction:</b></p> <ul> <li>Customers without internet access and seniors usually have a higher comfort level with phone payments and, therefore, an IVR.</li> <li>On the other hand, unbanked customers, younger customers and/or customers with full access to internet usually prefer <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/online-solution/" title="paying online" target="_self"><strong>paying online</strong></a> instead of using a phone interface for payments.</li> </ul> <p><b>Delinquency rates:</b></p> <p>Here we will define if an IVR can have an impact on your current delinquency rate.</p> <ul> <li>For senior customers and/or customers without internet access who are banked AND have consistent delinquency an IVR may help in reducing delinquency.</li> <li>For young customers and/or customers with internet access who are banked AND show no consistent delinquency an IVR system is unlikely to affect your delinquency rate.</li> </ul> <p><b>Walk-in / counter overloaded with Credit /Debit Cards</b></p> <p>This item is only relevant if your walk-in / counter locations are overloaded with credit/debit card payments (your cost to attend to you current walk-in / counter credit card payment demand is too high).</p> <ul> <li>If your walk-in / counter locations are overloaded with credit/debit cards from senior customers and/or customers without internet access an IVR system may reduce your overall payment processing costs.</li> <li>If your walk-in / counter locations are overloaded with credit/debit cards from younger customers and/or customers with internet access, pushing web payments and/or mobile text payments is a better option than IVR.</li> </ul> <p><b>Onsite or Hosted?</b></p> <p>If offering an IVR is indispensable for your organization’s success, the only decision that remains is whether to host the IVR yourself or to hire a <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/electronic-processing/" title="third party payment processor" target="_self">third party payment processor</a></strong>. Let’s take a quick look on the pros and cons of each option:</p> <ul> <li>Onsite: Apparently lower cost, but will consume considerable IT staff and server resources. Also, this requires PCI Compliance and becomes expensive to keep high customer service levels.</li> <li>Hosted: Apparent higher cost, but releases you from extending your own IT resources; does not bump up PCI compliance level; high level branded customer service and maintenance are included in the cost.</li> </ul> <p>If you have a lot of untapped IT resources and don’t foresee problems with the possibility of having your PCI compliance costs and responsibilities increased, then your best option is onsite hosting. Otherwise outscourcing your payments channels is a no-brainer.</p> <p><b>Offsetting the Costs</b></p> <p>Either way, a good and popular way to offset IVR costs is to use a convenience fee model.</p> <p>Once you feel safe evaluating your organization’s needs for an <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/ivr-solution/" title="IVR Payment System" target="_self">IVR Payment System</a></strong> is<b> </b>the next step to quote a solution. When this moment comes please feel free to contact us for a free no-obligation quote.</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 292px; height: 101px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-090e59ae-5948-4bdf-8a4e-afe5ba907a5e" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 292px; height: 101px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-090e59ae-5948-4bdf-8a4e-afe5ba907a5e" id="hs-cta-090e59ae-5948-4bdf-8a4e-afe5ba907a5e"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=090e59ae-5948-4bdf-8a4e-afe5ba907a5e"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-090e59ae-5948-4bdf-8a4e-afe5ba907a5e").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-090e59ae-5948-4bdf-8a4e-afe5ba907a5e").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Optimizing Your Multi-Channel Payment Strategy</h1> <p>Mon, 14 May 2012 15:22:00 GMT</p> <h1></h1> <h1>Optimization is Key</h1> <p>Much has been said about how important it is for any billing company to offer several different payment options to customers. But how do you know when your current payment channel mix is giving your organization the best ROI?</p> <p>With this in mind, we wrote this guide to optimizing your multi-channel payment strategy. You can simultaneously increase your customer satisfaction, prevent and reduce your current delinquency rates and increase the efficiency of your accounting. Is this too good to be true?</p> <h1>How to Do it</h1> <p>The first step is to review the reason why it is so important to offer your customers a wide variety of payment channels and options to pay. Let’s start by segmenting your customers into three groups; based on their access to banking services. This segmentation will allow you to better predict your customers demand for each payment channel:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Unbanked</strong> customers usually stick to <strong>Walk-in</strong></li> <li><strong>Underbanked</strong> customers also tend to stick to walk-in. However, underbanked households have been making a strong use of general purpose reloadable cards (GPR) which allows the receiving of direct deposits from employers and making payments <strong>online</strong> or thru <strong>IVR</strong>. </li> <li><strong>Banked</strong> customers tend to spread through all possible payment channels: <strong>Online</strong>, <strong>Walk-in</strong>, <strong>Mail-in</strong>, <strong>IVR</strong> and <strong>Mobile</strong>.</li> </ul> <p>Once you have unbanked and underbanked payment channels demand figured out, it leaves banked customers to work with. How do you define what channels should have more demand from your banked customers? <br />The answer lies inside your own payment records: Delinquency History. Segment your banked customers based on their delinquency history: Never Late, Sometimes Late and Always Late. Now add a very special category: NSF Offenders.</p> <h1>Preparing Your CSRs</h1> <p>With your banked customers further segmented in these four sub-groups it’s time for a meeting with your Customer Service Representatives (CSR). Instruct and train your CSRs to promote the best payment channel and payment options to each of the sub-groups:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Never Late</strong> – Whatever payment option they prefer.</li> <li><strong>Often Late </strong>&<strong> Always Late</strong>: Credit/debit cards and e-check <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/online-solution/" title="online payments" target="_self">online payments</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/ivr-solution/" title="IVR" target="_self">IVR</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/bill2txt/" title="mobile phone text payments" target="_self">mobile phone text payments</a></strong> (with text reminders!). Heavily promote and incent a recurring payment program.</li> <li><strong>NSF Offenders</strong>: Credit/debit cards on online payments, IVR and mobile phone text payments. Heavily promote and incent a recurring payment program. You need to make sure that you have the ability to not allow e-check payments for NSF Offenders.</li> </ul> <h1>The Cherry on the Cake</h1> <p>Now it’s time for the cherry on the cake. Be sure your <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/software-integration/" title="payment provider" target="_self">payment provider</a></strong> funnels all channels into the same back end system and integrates this back end system with your own billing system. Also be sure that you will receive your funds in one daily deposit (as opposed to reconciling several complex merchant statements). By doing this, your accounting will immediately be more efficient.</p> <h1>Next Step</h1> <p>So here we go! Now that you have a great idea on how to review and make sure that you are offering the right payment channels mix to your customers, please feel free to contact us for a no-obligation payment channel strategy assessment. We will be happy to help you figure out the details and make sure you have all the pieces of this puzzle called <strong>MULTI-CHANNEL PAYMENTS STRATEGY</strong>!</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 292px; height: 197px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-38f57c50-2e15-4e99-ad61-733a4dfdf929" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 292px; height: 197px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-38f57c50-2e15-4e99-ad61-733a4dfdf929" id="hs-cta-38f57c50-2e15-4e99-ad61-733a4dfdf929"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=38f57c50-2e15-4e99-ad61-733a4dfdf929"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-38f57c50-2e15-4e99-ad61-733a4dfdf929").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-38f57c50-2e15-4e99-ad61-733a4dfdf929").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>The Pains of Becoming PCI Level 1 Compliant</h1> <p>Tue, 08 May 2012 22:01:00 GMT</p> <div> <h2>A Quest for The Holy Grail</h2> <p>PCI Level 1 Compliance: The holy grail. Where to start on this tough quest? Fortunately, one of the best ways to begin the journey into PCI Compliance is something that sounds easy: a Questionnaire. </p> </div> <p>Becoming PCI Level 1 compliant is not an easy battle. So much so, that we nicknamed these questions “The Four Pains of Becoming PCI Level 1 Compliant.” Let’s take a brief look at each one of the “pains”.</p> <h2>The Four Pains</h2> <h2 style="padding-left: 60px;">1. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Position</h2> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">What is your position in the credit payment process? If you have low volume you may not meet PCI Level 1 volume criteria. The level indicates your tightness of security. The higher your volume, the bigger target you are. Therefore you must go through more hassle and expense the higher level you are. Level 1 is the highest volume and highest security, therefore the most secure. First, assess the need for PCI compliance, be aware of the level you would have to become and what that level requires. Now you’re done with the easy part.</p> <h2 style="padding-left: 60px;">2. Posture</h2> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">What does this mean for your security posture and what changes will this entail? Now the work begins, engaging experts, peeling the layers of the PCI standard to understand how it impacts your infrastructure, policies, software, processes and most importantly your pocket book. The funny thing is, someone is always moving the target every year.</p> <h2 style="padding-left: 60px;">3. Progress</h2> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Changes, Changes, Changes… Mind you not all bad, but they have to be done. This includes application tweaks, infrastructure isolation, intense access controls… the list is long [some say 12 to be exact ;-) ]. Some low cost, some significant, but all take time. You’ve heard the old line “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” </p> <h2 style="padding-left: 60px;">4. Proof</h2> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Now the day of reckoning. You’ve worked really hard, spent a lot of money and now will you pass? As most of you know, working with auditors is one of the most exciting things that can happen to you, really. Not! They will turn over every stone (document, diagram, databases, etc), scan and penetration test your systems. Success! Great feeling of accomplishment and euphoria for the team! Before the euphoria fades, the reality takes hold – you will repeat items 2 through 4 every year!</p> <h2>The Alternative </h2> <p>Becoming PCI Level 1 compliant is a tough and expensive process, but never forget that you do have another option: Hiring a high quality payment processor. A third party gateway will take all this PCI Level 1 compliance weight off of your shoulders, sometimes at no extra cost. High quality payment processors handle a lot of payments, therefore you also get a higher level of security, since they usually have to be level 1.</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 482px; height: 50px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3" id="hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/evaluating-the-potential-of-outsourcing"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-dce14450-1461-4546-9131-38d1f356c0d3").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>How Does The Global Payments Security Breach Affect You?</h1> <p>Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:25:00 GMT</p> <h2>Who is Really Processing Your Payments?</h2> <p>You need to know who is processing your payments. It may not be who you think. You are contracted with a third party payments provider, but electronic payments have many companies in the supply chain. Who is really processing your payments?</p> <h2>Global Payments: Another Breach</h2> <p>Global Payments is fresh in the financial news for being hacked, and having credit card information stolen. Chances are, many of those accounts (or the merchants and government agencies who took the payments) didn't even know they were trusting Global. Do your payments go through Global? Would you know? Ask your provider, quickly.</p> <h2>Is Bigger Always Safer?</h2> <p>It takes a lot of work, expertise, and risk to break into a PCI secure company. There are many hurdles to overcome; only the most capable thieves can do it, and they need a big target to make it worth it. Is your data safer at the biggest processor? A huge corporation has more firewalls to protect, more people to trust, more ground for holes to go unnoticed. Global is just the latest target. Other famous examples? Sony's Playstation market was shut down for over a month. Citigroup gave up 360,000 customer's accounts. In the past year, there have been high-profile data attacks against the International Monetary Fund, National Public Radio, Google and Sony's PlayStation Network. Any PCI level 1 processor is a real challenge to break, only the big ones provide enough incentive.</p> <h2>What To Do In Case Of A Security Breach?</h2> <p>What would happen if your provider was suddenly not PCI Compliant? What is your responsibility to your payers? If you don’t know if your provider uses Global, you may not know if you are secure.</p> <h2>Follow Up In The News</h2> <p>Here are some useful links for you to be up to date with the news on the Global Payments Security breach: </p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-02/global-payments-visa-breach/53940764/1">Global loses VISA's PCI compliance</a></strong></p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46976527/ns/business-motley_fool/#.T3825fDOUsI">Description of problem and financial markets effect on Global Payments</a></strong></p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/falkenrath-on-global-payments-data-breach/2012/04/02/gIQA07jBrS_video.html">Video</a></strong>: Including some information on security, vulnerability in larger acquirers and PCI.</p> <h2>Be Prepared and Let Us Help You With That</h2> <p>The more important issue at hand for you right now should be to find out if this Global breach affects you and what to do in the case that it actually does affect your security.</p> <p>At <strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/electronic-processing/" title="Bill2Pay" target="_self">Bill2Pay</a></strong> we have an online bill payments security team that will help you with this matter. Just click on the banner below to request a free quick assessment from us, <span>at no charge, with no obligations on your part</span>.</p> <p><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 600px; height: 179px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-a76a9a2e-adc9-4f6a-a1e2-2452a0f3cd9a" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 600px; height: 179px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-a76a9a2e-adc9-4f6a-a1e2-2452a0f3cd9a" id="hs-cta-a76a9a2e-adc9-4f6a-a1e2-2452a0f3cd9a"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/discuss-payments-security-threat-with-an-expert" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/discuss-payments-security-threat-with-an-expert"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=a76a9a2e-adc9-4f6a-a1e2-2452a0f3cd9a"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-a76a9a2e-adc9-4f6a-a1e2-2452a0f3cd9a").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-a76a9a2e-adc9-4f6a-a1e2-2452a0f3cd9a").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> <p> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Kathy Wilson: Remittance Processing Road To Success</h1> <p>Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:51:00 GMT</p> <p></p> <p>In charge of productivity levels, error rates, exceptions management and cost management, Kathy Wilson has been the brains behind Bill2Pay’s Lockbox Service excellence for the last 19 years.</p> <h2>A Tough Road To Success</h2> <p>But not all was glory when Kathy joined the company that Intuition Systems purchased back in 1993. The previous company had hired Kathy to come in and take over the management of their lockbox as they had poor quality, payments not posting daily and letters from their customers threatening to leave. Kathy and her team at the time were able to turn the lockbox operation around and did so without losing a client.</p> <h2>Reaping the Results</h2> <p><span>When Intuition Systems was acquiring another division of the original company, they learned how pleased the lockbox clients had become under Kathy's management. Intuition Systems then wisely decided to purchase the Lockbox division also. </span>Since then, the operation has grown from a handful of clients to well over 50 clients and is known for its high standard of customer service and quality.</p> <p>Today<b>, </b><strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/Lockbox-Services/" title="Bill2Pay’s Lockbox Service" target="_self">Bill2Pay’s Lockbox Service</a> </strong>sports an error rate of 0.001% of the industry standard - that's one thousand times less errors than the lockbox industry standard! In the productivity, efficiency and costs field, Bill2Pay Lockbox Service Operation’s compact, loyal and motivated staff, process over 2 million paper check payments a month at a very competitive cost.</p> <h2>There's a Great Person in There Too!</h2> <p>But turning Bill2Pay into a perfectly tuned and oiled lockbox machine is not the only field where Kathy excels. Kathy is a dedicated mom of two handsome and athletic boys and loving wife. A big fan of football and baseball, Kathy and her family follow the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tampa Bay Rays together with great enthusiasm.</p> <p>Kathy also enjoys writing for Bill2Pay’s blog. She currently posts as the author of several articles about how to achieve excellence in remittance processing and actively participate in the the creation of Bill2Pay’s original content on how to lower remittance processing costs, errors and inefficiencies.</p> <p>When asked about her personal goals for 2012 Kathy responded that one of her main goals for 2012 is to help to promote the techniques and strategies that make a remittance processing operation to become a standard of excellence.</p> <h2>A Message to Bill2Pay's Clients, Partners and VIPs</h2> <p>We asked Kathy if she had a message to our clients and partners, and her answer was:</p> <p>“<em>I would like to make every one aware that I’m available and would love to receive help requests from our clients and partners on how to increase productivity, reduce costs, error rates and inefficiencies in any remittance processing operation!</em>”</p> <p>Kathy can be reached directly via email: <b><em>Kathy.Wilson@bill2pay.com</em></b></p> <p><b><em><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 578px; height: 75px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 578px; height: 75px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb" id="hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/download-free-guide-5-quick-tips-on-reducing-remittance-processing-errors-0" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/download-free-guide-5-quick-tips-on-reducing-remittance-processing-errors-0"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span> <br /></em></b></p> </article> <article> <h1>The Value of Multiple Payment Options</h1> <p>Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:37:00 GMT</p> <p>Many companies spend millions of dollars in product analysis, marketing, sales, product, distribution and numerous other standard business activities but then neglect the question of how they are going to get paid.</p> <p>I remember a conference that I was asked to speak at where the topic was bill presentment and bill payment. As I scanned the audience, virtually all of the listeners were in their mid 40s and early 50s. A simple question was asked:</p> <p><em> “<strong>How many companies utilize a mobile payment application or a mobile invoicing process?</strong>” </em></p> <p>The answer was none. While this would not seem strange if this conference occurred in 1997, unfortunately this happened in 2007. While those of us that are a little mature in years may have grown up in the technology century, if you are anything like me, I am just now figuring out how to download music on my iPod.</p> <h1>The Facebook Effect</h1> <p>Utilities, insurance companies, municipalities don’t necessarily make the headlines when it comes to cutting edge billing and payment applications. However, this biller segment touches a larger cross section of paying Americans than most other entities. A public utility has a complete cross section of customers. From providing services for multi-million dollar properties to low income housing from recreational vehicle parks to major office parks, a public utility bills and accepts payments from countless customers.</p> <p>When your customer base is this broad, relying only on <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/payment-solutions-services/Lockbox-Services/" title="check" target="_self">check</a>, <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/online-solution/" title="online" target="_self">online</a>, and <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/pos-solution/" title="in person" target="_self">in person</a> payments may not be meeting the needs of your customers. While a utility may offer online payments, which typically require an email address, would it surprise the reader to know that your customers who are under 30 don’t look at their emails more than once or twice a month? However, they look at and update their Facebook account 8 to 9 times per day.</p> <h1>How Do We Respond?</h1> <p>Does it make sense for your company to rely on your bank to direct your payment strategy? While banks do a great job of depositing funds, providing analysis, and core banking services, almost all major banks and community banks rely on a handful of core processors for ancillary services such as payment processing.</p> <p>Does your bank offer multiple payment options like a full suite of mobile payments, counter applications, third-party payment relationship, and <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/bill2txt/" title="text payments" target="_self">text payments</a>? Do they offer electronic billing via social media sites? Do they offer PayPal as a payment option? While these are a few questions that you may want to consider, the biggest question is:</p> <h4><em><b>Are you offering your customer the same cutting edge payment methodologies as you do with your cutting edge product or service?</b></em></h4> <p><b><br /></b></p> <p><b><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 578px; height: 75px; display: block; border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb" data-mce-style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 578px; height: 75px; display: block; border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb" id="hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/download-free-guide-5-quick-tips-on-reducing-remittance-processing-errors-0" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/download-free-guide-5-quick-tips-on-reducing-remittance-processing-errors-0"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span> <br /></b></p> </article> <article> <h1>If Only Payment Reconciliation Was That Easy...</h1> <p>Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:29:00 GMT</p> <h1 style="text-align: center;"></h1> <p style="text-align: left;"> For <strong>REAL</strong> tips on how to make your payment reconciliation an easier task, please check our blog post on the subject: "<strong><a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/blog/bid/128634/Is-Your-Payment-Reconciliation-a-Daily-Nightmare" title="Is Your Payment Reconciliation a Daily Nightmare?">Is Your Payment Reconciliation a Daily Nightmare?</a></strong>"<span style="text-align: center;"> </span></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="hs-cta-wrapper" style=" border-width: 0px;" id="hs-cta-wrapper-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb" data-mce-style="border-width: 0px;">  <span class="hs-cta-node hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb" id="hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb"> <a href="http://www.bill2pay.com/download-free-guide-5-quick-tips-on-reducing-remittance-processing-errors-0" data-mce-href="http://www.bill2pay.com/download-free-guide-5-quick-tips-on-reducing-remittance-processing-errors-0"></a> </span><script type="text/javascript"> (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-9e24d018-ef1e-40ca-b122-f16497e1afcb").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); </script> </span></p> </article> </main></body></html>