Walmart, Paymentus expand bill pay options

Paymentus Corp. disclosed Sept. 3, 2020, that Walmart Inc. has joined the Paymentus Instant Payment Network. The new partnership expands consumer bill pay options at Walmart stores and within the Walmart app, according to Dushyant Sharma, president and CEO at Paymentus.

“We are excited to be the leading force behind the paradigm shift in how consumers and business interact,” Sharma said in a statement. “Our partnership with Walmart further cements Paymentus as the future-proof provider of simplified bill pay experiences for consumers and a source of operational excellence for businesses.”

Describing Paymentus as a trusted platform that powers customer interaction management, bill presentment and payments, Sharma noted the platform is compatible with digital wallet, web, mobile, IVR, text, email, chat, voice assistant, point of sale and agent assisted interfaces. Its omnichannel and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities help businesses around the world enrich the quality of their customer interactions, maximize uptime and reduce fraud, he explained.

Digital solutions

A 2019 study titled “Disrupting the Bill Pay Market: Innovations Create Opportunities to Upgrade the Experience for All Participants,” by Mercator Advisory Group and sponsored by Mastercard, described consumer bill payments as complicated ecosystem involving consumers, banks, credit unions, financial institutions, billers and bill service providers.

“For the transactional stakeholders in this market, bill pay represents an area ripe for innovation through technology and partnerships,” researchers wrote. “Bill pay transactions make up 30 percent of consumer spending, with the total estimated at more than $4 trillion annually in the United States.”

Researchers noted that the bill payment process has been complicated for consumers, who must set up bill payment with multiple billers in a process that can be cumbersome, lacking in transparency and prone to errors. Consumers must remember unique logins and passwords when paying bills on different websites, they noted. The market needs bill payment solutions that improve customer experience and help banks and billers facilitate digital interactions.

Scaling bill payments

Sharma noted that adding Walmart to the Instant Payment Network has expanded the platform’s reach by providing bill payment options to 140 million weekly Walmart visitors, both onsite and online. Paymentus partners, which include Walmart, PayPal and Amazon, use the company’s SaaS-based customer engagement, payment platform and AI-based Instant Payment Network, to enable customers to transact in their preferred payment methods.

Following are examples of the platform’s digital capabilities:

• Omnichannel capabilities: Call centers can deploy bill payment options through agent-assisted IVR, live chat and chatbots. Paymentus also works on mobile apps, paperless billing, pay-by-mail, secure PDF documents, AI-driven voice assistance, kiosk, social media, POS and SMS payments options.

• Payment methods and frequencies: Participating businesses can use the platform for credit, debit, e-check, ACH, digital wallet, prepaid, autopay, preauthorized and future-dated payments, one-time payments and cash.

• Advanced business services: End-users can use secure administrative portals, comprehensive report tools, advanced telemetry and enterprise communication management within the platform.

The independently audited Paymentus platform complies with industry standards and offers an array of benefits to consumers and business owners alike, Sharma noted. Consumers appreciate having the ability to transact on computers, mobile devices, onsite and remotely. These options meet the needs of modern bill payers and improve the overall bill payment experience.

Additional information about the Mercator Advisory Group bill payment study is available at www.mastercard.us/content/dam/mccom/en-us/business-payments/documents/mastercard-bill-pay-exchange-mercator-co-brand-whitepaper.pdf

For more information about the Paymentus Instant Payment Network, visit www.paymentus.com/instantpaymentnetwork

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