What is EBPP?
Posted by Alison Arthur on 26 Mar 2019
This blog frequently explores issues related to electronic bill presentment and payments (EBPP), from defining frequently used terminology to busting common myths. But what exactly do we mean by EBPP? Here’s a high-level overview of the major components, features, and functionality of an EBPP solution to help get you started.
EBPP Defined
EBPP is a holistic approach to presenting electronic bills and accepting digital payments from consumers. An EBPP solution is integrated into a biller’s systems to facilitate seamless e-bill delivery and payments acceptance. It allows billers to deliver the following capabilities to customers:
- Deliver e-bills in conjunction with, or as a replacement for, printed paper bills
- Send account alerts and notifications to consumers through digital channels such as email and text messaging
- Allow customers to fund digital bill payments using Payment Methods such as ACH and card payments; manual payments (point of sale card payments, personal checks, cash, etc.) can also be recorded in an EBPP solution
- Accept payments from a variety of Payment Channels including web-based channels, telephone-based channels, and other channels
- Schedule payments using Payment Options including AutoPay, Payment Plans, One Time payments, etc.
Customer Support
In addition to client-facing features and functionality, an EBPP solution also allows billers’ internal staff to perform the following Customer Support activities:
- Add new customers, edit existing customer records, and reset user passwords
- View individual payment details as well as a top-down payments summary
- Schedule bill payments
- Communicate with customers via secure messaging
Online Reporting
Finally, an EBPP solution offers Online Reporting to give billers additional transparency into activity related to payments, customers, and settlement.
EBPP in Action
How does EBPP work in the real world? Our 2018 Trends Report sheds light on how consumers approached their bill payments over the course of last year. Some key takeaways include:
- The popularity of ACH as a Payment Method for both billers and consumers
- The overwhelming preference for web-based payments
- The most popular times that consumers made bill payments in 2018
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