How has e-billing space evolved in the last ten years?
E-billing, as seen from a corporate perspective, can be split into two parts; Accounts Payable (AP), about incoming bills, only happening in B2B, and Account Receivables (AR), about outgoing bills, both B2B and B2C. AcceptEmail focusses on the latter, outgoing bills to consumers and small companies. The development of e-billing on the AR side of things was quite simple. Firstly, instead of printing the bill, one can just make it into a pdf file, which could then be presented on the company’s website, which is often called a MyPortal or a Self Service Portal or at an aggregator, such as a bank. The next step was that on top of having an option to view and download that bill, one could also pay online. And that is the status for most companies nowadays; you can find and pay your bills online at a biller or bank portal.
It turns out, however, that for most companies only 20%-30% of the clientele is willing to use the billing portals. They are not customer friendly; you need to register as a member, you need to log in every time, and it is simply not very pleasant to have to go look for your bill (pull). Normally the bill is presented to you (push), at the place where you are. And lastly, most portals are not very mobile-friendly either. From our experience we have learned that customers and SMEs are far more appreciative of receiving bills and reminders at a location chosen by them, often the email or text inbox on their mobile. Our goal is helping companies getting the remaining 70%-80% of their customers to go paperless. We do this by creating a different bill payment experience: we send out emails or text messages with a request to pay a bill. The customer can then initiate the payment right away. This means that it only takes a couple of clicks to pay and no registration, no log-in, just the payment authorization. That is the missing part of the customers, which we call the ‘digital gap’.
What business opportunities have you discovered in e-billing and mobile payments, and what role does AcceptEmail play in this?
We think that e-billing and mobile payments are a match made in heaven. The convenience of being able to pay anytime, anywhere, is highly compatible with the optimal billing process. There are far less late payments, the transparency is higher, and the payment experience becomes better. Ten years in this market has made us an expert on displaying biller information to the customer and making it easier for them to do their payments. What makes us stand out in this field is that we have no software download, we have unparalleled integration skills resulting in quick deployment, and our platform is enhanced by several features like instant reporting and scheduling, making it very powerful to use.
What are the differences between the EU and the US, regarding e-billing and e-payments?
Billing-wise, the EU is more debit-based; it is more based on money you have in your account. Credit cards are used less domestically. The costs for e-payments are generally lower than in the US, too. The ACH network in the US is terribly behind on things like authentication and multiple clearing and settlement cycles, leaving aside continuous clearing settlement, or real-time payments. So the whole banking infrastructure makes credit transfers slow in the US, leading to high usage of services like credit cards and wallets. These alternatives provide a better user experience, but are a lot more expensive. The EU is adopting email as attractive direct billing channel, combined with the payment, but the US still needs to get to that point. The whole cash and cheque payment market, combined with the staggering amount of underbanked and unbanked people (about 58 million) leads to the country lagging somewhat behind on the digitalization as well. So one of our goals is to give the unbanked and underbanked the possibility of making payments online; they have a phone, they have email, so they can use our service with payment methods that are affordable for them like prepaid debit cards. The other big difference is that in Western Europe, direct debit is very popular, whereas in the US direct debit is in most cases not even an option. The alternative there is recurring credit card, which has a lower adoption than direct debit.
You have been running AcceptEmail for eight years now. Where do you see AcceptEmail in five years?
We have now rolled out AcceptEmail in six countries. In five years, we want to be present and successful in at least twelve. We really want to be an integral part of the billing mix and payment mix of companies. We believe that when you expand the menu, more people will come to dine at your restaurant. And they will like you better. We make bill payments easier. We see the company growing bigger, and expanding internationally, and eventually, being the standard for paying household bills via email across the world.
About Peter Kwakernaak
Peter Kwakernaak is an experienced entrepreneur in FinTech. Since 2008 he is the CEO of AcceptEmail, providing a SaaS based electronic bill presentment and payment service via e-mail, mobile, online and text for corporates in business to consumer and business to small business. Prior to AcceptEmail, Peter was Chief Commercial Officer at NetEconomy, a Risk & Compliance software company providing solutions for anti-money laundering and fraud detection to large financial institutions and corporates. NetEconomy was acquired by US Fortune-500 company Fiserv in 2007. Peter founded and led MaXware Benelux in 1998 as a subsidiary of a Norwegian listed corporation. MaXware specialised in cash management solutions, bulk-payment channels for financial institutions and payment factories for large corporates. The company became part of Belgian payments specialist Clear2Pay in 2005. In turn Clear2Pay was sold to US company FIS Global in 2015. Peter has a Master of Science degree in Business Economics from the Erasmus University Rotterdam.
About AcceptEmail
AcceptEmail simplifies and disrupts bill payments. The easiest way to receive and pay household bills by mobile, tablet or PC via email or text. Pay directly from the inbox using online payment methods. No manual data entry, registration or log-in. Customers experience convenience and real-time status updates. Billers reduce billing costs and enjoy quicker paying customers. It fills the digital gap for billers that want more customers to go paperless.
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