Are B2B Payments at a Tipping Point

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) September 27, 2011 -- September 26, 2011

For immediate release

Are B2B Payments at a Tipping Point?

By W. H. (Bill) Loewen, C.M., F.C.A.
Chairman, Telpay Incorporated

Anyone who has been following the B2B (Business to Business) payments has
been watching the conversion from cheques to electronic bill payment. Although
the number of cheques being issued has declined in Canada and worldwide,
business has not fully embraced electronic payments because of some of the

challenges that go with it. These challenges being; the availability and quality of
the information sent with the payment, the inability to pay anyone without
obtaining bank information, along with addressing double entry.
Telpay Bill Payment Service, has successfully solved most of the problems that
have held back development of Business to Business (B2B) payments. Telpay
now processes in the order of 18 million payments worth $13.1 billion per year.
While not all business have recognized that Telpay has reached the “tipping
point” for electronic payments, Telpay is more than ready when they do.

Telpay initiated telephone bill payment service in Canada in 1985. Through the
following twenty five years it has served over 200 financial institutions and their
consumer customers with high quality electronic bill payment services. In the late
1990s Telpay recognized that business payments also needed attention.
Consumer payments were directed to a limited number of regular monthly billers.
Businesses needed a much broader list of payees and needed more information
than just an account number in order to properly credit the customer’s account.
They needed the ability to pay anyone. Those and other reasons encouraged

Telpay to develop a software service that would allow the company to collect its
payment data on its own premises and just send the payment file to Telpay.
Creating and maintaining a biller list so individuals could pay their monthly bills
was a challenge. Businesses, on the other hand, had to be able to pay anyone.
Such a list would have to accommodate in the hundreds of thousands of billers
and their banking information. Establishing a system that would allow billers to be
added and qualified “on the fly” was the biggest challenge. Telpay enlisted the bill
payers themselves to help advance that process but that required tight

procedures at the Telpay end to ensure that fraudulent payments did not sneak
through. Telpay now has that system operating with thousands of companies
across Canada.

Another problem was integration with the business’ accounting system. Whether
the company was importing to Telpay from its accounts payable system or
entering its payments directly into the Telpay system, interfaces were needed.
Many of those have now been developed. Telpay runs into few new situations.
Many other solutions had to be found to meet the needs of businesses for proper

control over their payments: multiple authorization, remote authorization, backup,
availability of funds to cover payments, confirmation of payments and so on.
During this time bill presentment was becoming “the next sought after app”.
Telpay recognized that businesses would have a problem with electronic billing.
While individuals may not need paper records, businesses needed more or less
permanent records for audit and tax purposes. If they had to print the bill why not
let the biller print it. So Telpay developed a method of importing electronic bills

into the software, paying the bills and storing the bill image with the paid bill data
base itself. The need to print the bill was eliminated.

Government remittances generally require special information. Arrangements
with these agencies allow Telpay to fulfill their needs within the system.
International payments are dealt with by making arrangements with Foreign
Exchange service providers. Direct deposit of payroll funds is dealt with by
accepting a file from the company’s payroll system. Thus, the system can meet
all the payment needs of any small to medium size company. Telpay suggests to

larger companies that they use multiple systems to handle their volumes.
To maximize the efficiency of the system internally for itself and externally for its
customers, Telpay consolidates each payment session so that there is only one
debit to their bank account. This saves bank fees and simplifies bank
reconciliations. Telpay also consolidates the payments to the billers. They
receive by file or other method all the payments for the day as one posting list
and one credit to their bank account.

Telpay is constantly renewing their “to do” list to satisfy newly recognized needs

of its customers. The biggest “to do” though is to get the word out that electronic
billing and payment has finally reached the “tipping point”.

bill payment     bill payment services     bill payment systems     business finance     business to business     electronic currencies     electronic payment services     personal finance