A smooth and efficient billing system is important for the delivery of services such as electricity, water, refuse and waste disposal.
A smooth and efficient billing system is important for the delivery of services such as electricity, water, refuse and waste disposal.
Failure to implement an efficient system can result in trouble for municipalities and disarray as they are unable to generate accurate customer statements.
“The news is constantly filled with stories of municipalities in debt. At present, the country’s municipalities are owed in excess of R120 billion and this is having a knock-on effect on suppliers like Eskom, resulting in threats to cut power in order to force municipalities to pay their arrears. Ultimately, this impacts residents with poor or even a lack of service delivery,” said Nomvula Nyandeni, Business Development Lead at leading payment aggregator and provider of secure payment solutions company, Pay@.
“More efficient payment systems mean better service delivery for South Africans,” concludes Nyandeni.
In a bid to help municipalities collect revenue and make it easier for residents to pay their municipal bills, Pay@ offers a single integration system which allows customers to utilise a variety of secure and convenient payment platforms.
These include in-store, online, digital apps, or banking solutions. Municipal bill presentment spans all income groups and technological requirements, for example USSD and MTN Momo for unbanked consumers versus apps such as Masterpass, SnapScan, Zapper, VodaPay, and bank apps for banked consumers in higher LSM brackets.
Siyabonga Sibeko, Financial Administrator at the City of uMhlathuze, who works with the system daily, states that one of its biggest benefits is convenience for customers. “They can make payments whenever and wherever they are, so they no longer have to come into our offices to do so. It also gives them the new balances on their account immediately. Additionally, it has allowed us to meet the needs of those customers who felt that we closed too early and were unable to get to us within our operating hours. For us, this has also meant that more revenue is collected.”
IOL TECH