U.S. Bank announced Monday an expansion on its current eBill product that includes enhanced “Request for Payment” services in a bid help billers provide a better experience for its customers.
According to the financial giant, U.S. Bank commercial clients can choose to have their bills delivered directly to them through their bank’s website or app. Payments can also be made 24 hours a day all year long. This means U.S Bank consumers can pay bills upon receipt and schedule payment at a time when they have sufficient funds.
In collaboration with the new offering, U.S. Bank also revealed requests for payment will be sent over The Clearing House‘s RTP network and will including immediate settlement, reduced costs due to less paper payments, and greater visibility into when the payment will be made.
U.S. Bank has dabbled in RfP prior to its Monday release, having offered U.S. Bank clients the option to send RfPs using SinglePoint (the company’s treasury portal) through APIs using the U.S. Bank Developer Portal, and via direct file transmission. Now, the bank is working to allow billers to offer their customers simple payment options through their preferred payment channel.
“Adding RfP capabilities to our eBill Service is just one of the ways we are helping our clients streamline operations, reduce costs, and offer simple and secure real-time payment options,” said Rich Erario, executive vice president and head of Global Treasury Management at U.S. Bank.
On Friday, Citigroup and the Bank of New York Mellon announced similar support for RfP messages through The Clearing House’s RTP network. Citigroup institutional clients now have the option to send electronic bills to consumers, who can pay immediately or at a scheduled time. BNY Mellon, on the other hand, unveiled Verizon as its first RfP client for consumers to do the same. According to a release, Citigroup will act as BNY Mellon’s initial bank partner for the Verizon deployment.
In August, JP Morgan Chase jumped ahead on the trend and also added RfP capabilities, citing it “hopes [this] will increase its edge in the financial industry’s battle to handle more of the surging volumes of global digital payments.”
The latest integrations by both large and small FI’s highlights banks consistent need to stay in tune with consumers and clients digital needs – for many, this means accelerating tech in more than one sector. Three days prior to its RfP announcement, U.S. bank unveiled a revamped version of its robo-advisor, Automated Investor, to make it easier to use and more accessible to first-time investors.
Just a week prior to that news, U.S. Bank also announced it will leverage Intercontinental Exchange’s ICE ETF Hub to offer its customer base expedited electronic access to the ETF primary market. With this relationship, U.S. Bank clients will have access to the ICE ETF Hub platform, which currently supports U.S.-listed equity, fixed-income, derivative, commodity and multi-asset ETFs.
“Digital payment technology is constantly evolving, and so are we,” said Erario,