In a recent survey respondents said that they would choose a bank based on the ability to pay bills online over the geographic location of the bank. This is a significant shift in consumer behavior in that financial institutions in the past were chosen based on their location or proximity to home. To the business who is a biller this provides a significant opportunity to cut the costs of billing using a billing distribution network.

A billing distribution network gives a biller the opportunity to send a bill to a financial institution. As a biller you may be familiar with bill pay at the bank's web site, but not realize that you can also present a bill to one of your customers at the bank's web site. How can you the biller take advantage of this distribution network?

There are three major companies who offer distribution of bills to a financial institution. These companies will take a data file from you, the biller, and upload it to their network. After a bill is uploaded, those customers who are signed up with the bank's bill pay and presentment service are sent an e.Mail notification stating that the bill is ready to view and pay.

Customers who use their bank's bill pay service may have an automatic payment scheduled which means payment will be sent either when the bill is received or when the bill is due. This is an excellent benefit for customers who never want to be late with their payments and excellent for the biller's receivables.

Distribution of a biller's bill to all corners of the web also has a secondary or "off label" benefit and that is marketing. Millions of people search for e.bills offered using a "pick list" which means they go through several different companies looking for the e.bill from their company. During this search process they will view many different company names including yours.

Another "off label" benefit is the loyalty of customers who use electronic billing services. Surveys have shown that customers who use electronic billing or online billing are significantly more likely to stay with the biller's product or service over a competitor's product or service. The bottom line benefit of this customer is difficult to measure; however, the value of keeping a customer versus replacing that customer with a new one has been proven and validated as a more profitable and less costly.

Finally the savings from postage, print, and paper can not be overstated. When a customer enrolls to receive their bills online they either are told their paper bill will be canceled or given the choice to cancel their paper bill. A biller can save, based on national averages, $.75 per bill when a paper bill is moved to an online bill. This is a significant sum of money for any biller sending 5000 bills or more.

The presentment of a bill online will continue to grow in popularity. At a point in history many people believed that the ATM would not replace the personal touch of the teller, those same people would be the stiffest opponents if ATM machines were removed. Online billing is following the same course as the ATM and as a biller you have the opportunity to ride the wave.