How Banks Can Improve Customer Satisfaction With Enhanced Bill Payment Services for Consumers and Small Businesses

Banks are increasingly looking to add new digital services that make their customers’ lives easier in efforts to boost retention and attract new business. However, they often overlook opportunities to enhance existing digital services that may be in need of an upgrade — especially bill payment.

Even though bill payment is a vital part of financial management for most people and businesses, most bank bill payment services are fragmented and disjointed, with very few payment alternatives and limited access to detailed accounting information. Enhancing this routine task with embedded finance technology solutions that leverage open banking APIs to deliver advanced functionality can help increase customer satisfaction.

Below we discuss why it’s so important to improve bill payment services by integrating embedded finance technology. We also review how this technology supports specific enhancements that enable financial institutions to provide consumer and small business clients with the best possible bill payment experience.

Why is it important to improve the bill payment experience?
Paying bills is a tedious task. It takes time, energy and focus that most people would prefer to spend on other things. Making this necessary task as seamless, convenient, and transparent as possible can increase customer loyalty and engagement.

ERP and treasury management systems often have more robust features, but a large percentage of consumer and small business banking clients use accounting systems such as Quicken or QuickBooks to manage their finances. Every time a customer has to leave the accounting system and go to their online banking system to pay a bill or access their account data, the added steps increase the time required to complete simple tasks and the likelihood of errors.

How can embedded finance improve the bill payment experience?

Implementing technology solutions from companies such as Ninth Wave that offer bill pay Integration through accounting systems such as Quicken and QuickBooks allows banks to substantially improve the bill payment experience for their customers. By enabling bill pay functionality directly within the accounting system, customers don’t have to go into their online banking system — both systems are seamlessly connected through secure, permission-based data sharing.

This functionality allows banks to enhance bill payment services in numerous ways including:

• Enabling bill consolidation: Consumers often find it challenging to manage bills coming from numerous sources. Embedded finance products for consumer and small business banking enable banks to simplify things for customers. They can send bill payment instructions from their accounting system to the bank, and link only to the specifically permissioned accounts.
• Providing real-time access to information: Customers typically want to know their balance, the date on which payments are due, and where their funds are going. Embedded services within Quicken and Quickbooks support this functionality and enable customers to feel more in charge of their finances by facilitating real-time visibility into billing details and activity.
• Extending the banking relationship: Bringing banking functions right into customers’ day-to-day accounting platform expands available payment options while enabling banks to extend their relationships beyond their existing online banking services.

While delivering a better bill pay experience provides numerous benefits for banking customers, it also delivers powerful advantages for financial institutions including increased customer loyalty and new revenue streams. Using a technology platform such as Ninth Wave Direct that leverages embedded finance for consumer and small business customers uniquely empowers financial institutions to significantly enhance bill payment services with secure, permission-based data sharing that supports the advanced features and functionality required to exceed customer expectations.

Reach out to Ninth Wave to learn more about how an embedded finance strategy can improve your bill payment services.