During the last several years, there has been a steady exodus of electronic bill-payment (bill-pay) transactions from financial institutions in favor of paying the billers directly through digital channels. Mercator Advisory Group’s latest research report, Bill Pay: Fast and Simple Wins, discusses why and how banks and credit unions could staunch this outflow. Most financial institutions do not charge fees for electronic bill payment despite the expense of maintaining a bill-pay system. That is because consumers expect the service to be included in their monthly checking account fee or in the balances they need to carry. But bill pay is a product that keeps consumers coming back to the financial institutions’ web and mobile sites, which leads to frequent interactions and opportunities for a bank or credit union to communicate information to its customers or members and offer financial advice.

1. Bill Pay: Fast and Simple Wins
April 2017

2. 2017 Mercator Advisory Group
During the last several years, there has been a steady exodus of electronic
bill-payment (bill-pay) transactions from financial institutions in favor of
paying the billers directly through digital channels. Mercator Advisory
Group’s latest research report, Bill Pay: Fast and Simple Wins, discusses
why and how banks and credit unions could staunch this outflow.
Most financial institutions do not charge fees for electronic bill payment
despite the expense of maintaining a bill-pay system. That is because
consumers expect the service to be included in their monthly checking
account fee or in the balances they need to carry. But bill pay is a product
that keeps consumers coming back to the financial institutions’ web and
mobile sites, which leads to frequent interactions and opportunities for a
bank or credit union to communicate information to its customers or
members and offer financial advice.
Mercator Advisory Group releases new research on importance
of importance of bill-pay services for banks and credit unions

3. 2017 Mercator Advisory Group
Mercator Advisory Group’s new report provides an understanding of current
U.S. bill-pay market, characteristics of bill-pay customers, and tactics being
deployed by financial institutions that are interested in keeping and
attracting bill-pay transactions in order to retain this critical consumer
interaction.
Report shows why banks and credit unions should staunch the outflow
of bill-pay transactions to biller-direct and other nonbank bill-pay sites

4. 2017 Mercator Advisory Group
“Billers have done a great job of making paying bills through digital channels as
frictionless an activity as possible. Financial institutions need to determine if this
trend matters. Bill pay doesn’t have much to offer FIs in terms of revenue, so
assessing its value is difficult, but it is a very sticky product,” comments Sarah
Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group, and
author of the report.
Sarah Grotta
Director,
Debit Advisory Service
Mercator Advisory Group

5. 2017 Mercator Advisory Group
• Overview of the current bill-pay market
• Bill pay’s role in banking relationships
• Mercator Advisory Group proprietary survey data showing U.S.
consumers’ bill-pay channel preferences
• Growth of online and mobile channels for bill pay
Highlights of the research report:

6. 2017 Mercator Advisory Group
One of the 5 exhibits in this research report:
Figure 2: Many Modes of Bill Pay
Source: Mercator Advisory Group
Provider
• Financial Institution
• Biller
• Third-Party Aggregator
• Person-to-Person (P2P)
Payments Provider
• Retailer
Channel
• Direct Debit (ACH)
• Online
• Mobile
• In Person
• Mail
• Voice
Funding Source
• Checking
• Debit
• Credit
• Prepaid
© 2017 Mercator Advisory Group

7. About the research report:
2017 Mercator Advisory Group
This report has 13 pages and 5 exhibits.
Companies mentioned in this report include: Fiserv, PayGo, PayPal, Square Cash, and TIO.
Members of Mercator Advisory Group’s Debit Advisory Service have access to these reports as
well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access, and other
membership benefits.
For more information and media inquiries, please call Mercator Advisory Group's main line: 1-781-419-
1700, send email to media@mercatoradvisorygroup.com.
For free industry news, opinions, research, company information and more visit us at
www.PaymentsJournal.com.
Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/MercatorAdvisor.
About Mercator Advisory Group
Mercator Advisory Group is the leading independent research and advisory services firm exclusively
focused on the payments and banking industries. We deliver pragmatic and timely research and advice
designed to help our clients uncover the most lucrative opportunities to maximize revenue growth and
contain costs. Our clients range from the world's largest payment issuers, acquirers, processors,
merchants and associations to leading technology providers and investors. Mercator Advisory Group is
also the publisher of the online payments and banking news and information portal PaymentsJournal.com.

8. About Mercator Advisory Group
Mercator Advisory Group is the leading independent research and advisory
services firm exclusively focused on the payments and banking industries. We
deliver pragmatic and timely research and advice designed to help our clients
uncover the most lucrative opportunities to maximize revenue growth and
contain costs.
Our clients range from the world's largest payment issuers, acquirers,
processors, merchants and associations to leading technology providers and
investors. Mercator Advisory Group is also the publisher of the online payments
and banking news and information portal PaymentsJournal.com.
2017 Mercator Advisory Group