Paymentus Holdings Inc., (NYSE: PAY), a leading electronic billing and payments platform provider, today marks 20 years of innovation and leadership in the billing, payment, and money movement space. Now serving more than 1,900 clients, Paymentus continues expand its portfolio of industry-leading products and solutions designed to simplify the bill-pay process and to encompass the entire bill pay continuum from consumers to billers, and financial institutions.
Since its founding in 2004, Paymentus has monitored the bill pay behaviors and preferences of millions of consumers across billions of transactions. This analysis reveals that today’s consumers are largely living in a state of perpetual bill-pay overwhelm. They are eager for solutions that provide control over their money movement and the flexibility to use a growing variety of readily available payment options for their monthly bills.
As National Pay Your Bills Week comes to a close, Paymentus notes the size of the challenge individuals and families face when trying to manage a monthly budget – underscored by the sheer volume of bills they receive. According to the recent Paymentus-supported study on How American’s Pay Their Bills from leading analysts firm, Datos Insights:
- In 2023, Americans received and paid more than 16.8 monthly bills – that’s more than 50 bills for each person, regardless of age.
- In 2023 alone, consumers spent $5.6 trillion on monthly bills – more than 20% of the total U.S. GDP.
- While the vast majority of bills are now paid electronically – only 4 in 10 are set up for auto-pay, leaving 10 billion to be paid individually, month-to-month.
“Paying bills is a ubiquitous experience that offers little enjoyment, which is why it’s often called a chore,” said Dushyant Sharma, Founder and CEO of Paymentus. “For 20 years, we have focused on simplifying bill pay to make it less of a chore. But simplicity is only part of the solution. Consumers really want more control over cash flow and household spending.”
The volume of bill payments made by credit or debit card has increased by 120% since 2010, according to recent data, and payments using digital wallets and other alternative payment methods are growing in popularity, especially among younger consumers. Today’s average bill payer relies on at least four different payment methods to manage their monthly bills.
“The data suggests that control over cash flow is the primary driver of bill pay behaviors,” explains Sharma. “While it is certainly more convenient to use auto-pay for bill payments, the fact is that consumers will trade convenience for the ability to change their payment method or shift their payment date from month-to-month. They are dynamically managing money across numerous platforms – not just a checking account – and work hard to time payments and avoid late fees and service interruptions. This is why 10 billion bills were paid as one-time-payments in 2023.”
To help consumers manage 10 billion individual transactions every year, billers and service providers need to give customers convenient and feature rich billing experiences, or risk losing business according to Sharma. A 2023 Paymentus-supported study conducted by PYMNTS.com, revealed that consumer interest in changing a service provider increased in proportion to the frustration they encountered in paying their bills. While the high cost of bills was cited as the most common bill-pay frustration (27%), inconvenience (22%), lack of features (22%) and lack of payment options (15%) were close behind.
“To look back over two decades of digitization and innovation, it is amazing how much we have accomplished,” said Sharma. “Banks and billers now have the tools to help consumers manage and pay their monthly bills faster, with more security, more payment options, and through more channels than ever before. Still, the status-quo has a short shelf life. Consumer expectations have never been higher or grown faster. It is up to us to understand them and outpace them.”
About Paymentus
Paymentus is a leading provider of cloud-based bill payment technology and solutions for more than 1,900 billers and financial institutions across North America. The company was named the industry’s best-in-class provider of EBPP solutions by Aite-Novarica in February 2022. The Paymentus omni-channel platform provides consumers with easy-to-use, flexible, and secure electronic bill payment experiences through their preferred payment channel and type. Paymentus’ proprietary Instant Payment Network®, or IPN, connects IPN partners’ platforms and tens of thousands of billers to Paymentus’ integrated billing, payment, and reconciliation capabilities. For more information, please visit www.paymentus.com.
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