And Q stands for Queue


OCTOBER 13, 2020

One cold February morning, Rahul Munjal’s driver went missing. After taking permission from the Hero Group scion for an hour off to pay his electricity bill, the driver returned late in the evening to report that huge queues prevented him from doing so.
This marked the entry of the Hero Group, better known as the world’s largest bike maker, into the Rs 50-crore bill payment industry. “I had been thinking of getting into the services business and this incident was the trigger point,” says Munjal, who set up Easy Bill earlier this year in an attempt at taking away the pain from bill payments.

That pain is something two generations of post-independence India had almost taken for granted. There was a time when people would not trust anybody when it came to bill payments. But changing lifestyles and established names have enhanced trust.

And that’s why other big business houses and banking institutions — like ICICI and TimesOfMoney — are standing in this fast-growing queue.

Of course, there’s also an endless list of smaller businessmen and entrepreneurs who have tried their hand at this venture — some successfully, some not so.

Even payment modes are becoming simpler. What initially started off as having collection centres at central points in the city is fast changing to settling bills through Internet, phone calls and even SMS.

“We understood that the market for bill payment on the Net was limited so we expanded to the IVR-based phone system where a customer can make his payments through a phone call,” says Suresh Rangarajan of TimesofMoney, the Times Group’s bill payment module.

It has a customer base of 10,000 users who pay on an average 2-3 bills a month using the TimesofMoney system.

Hero’s Easy Bill venture, in the first six months of its existence, has already collected bills worth over Rs 6 crore. ‘‘Over the next 10 years, I expect the revenue split between manufacturing and services within the Hero group to be 50-50,” adds Munjal.

What about fees? Minimal, say industry players, as compared to the ease and comfort provided in return.

“We realised that it wasn’t useful enough to charge on a per transaction basis. So, we now charge Rs 99 on a six-monthly cycle for any numbers of bills,” says Rangarajan.

The process is almost similar with other organisations. “We charge a nominal entry fee between Rs 200-550 from the customer,” adds Ruchi of Bill Junction, an ICICI venture.

But the trip till here has been tough. Besides attacking the consumer mindset of allowing a third party to pay their bills to access their bank accounts, these firms also had to slug it out with the scores of unorganised neighbourhood kirana stores.

“The unorganised sector smaller players were always thought to be a problem. So, we involved neighbourhood stores in our strategy and brand them,’’ says Munjal.
The other issue was convincing the consumer on the safety aspect of money transfers direct from their bank accounts. “We addressed this issue by informing the client everytime a bill is generated and going ahead only after receiving his/her go-ahead,” says Ruchi.

But of course there’s also competition from the service providers themselves, who are trying to reach out to the customer. Many organised players have tied up for providers to rope in people hesitant on sharing their credit card numbers with companies.



While physical cheque collection systems of the organised players raise the comfort level, there’s no doubt increasing comfort with credit cards will redefine this evolving market.

Archive

	Paying MTNL bills made easy for 45 lakh customers through Easy Bill
	E-mitra ties up with Easy Bill to launch
	Easy Bill
	And Q stands for Queue
	Easy Bill On Expansion Mode (The Financial Express , 16th September 2003)
	Hero's bill collection services
	Hero Groups “Easy Bill” Kicks Off (The Hindu, Business Line, New Delhi, July 23 2003)
	Hero mobikes doing well; no 3-wheeler plan
	Hero group plans to provide bill payments service
	Hero group sets up 'Easy Bill' (The Hindu business Line,New Delhi, Jan 10 2003)
	Hero Group To Set Up Retail Network For Bill Collection.(The Financial Express,All India , Jan 10 2003)
	Easy Bill by Hero Honda.(Economic Times,New Delhi, Jan 10 2003)
	Hero Group enters bill collection system.(Business Standard, New Delhi, Jan 10 2003)