Internet Changes Everything: Canada Post buys BCE’s Webdoxs

All I can say is that this is long overdue. The competing efforts at bill presentment in Canada, left the country in a situation where:

1) customers were losing out,
2) billers were losing out, and dare I say it,
3) Banks were losing out.

This is all the more painful because Canada is an acknowledged world leader in many respects with regard to electronic usage; the usage of debit cards, online banking, and intrernet penetration within Canada are very high, and at similar levels to other leaders such as Sweden.

So why are we behind in what is a natural next step – electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP). Canada has good penetration of bill payment, because the Banks chose to bundle that service within their online banking service, whereas the US banks oferred Bill Payment as a separate and “paid” service. They have since re-thought that approach and are migrating to the bundled approach.

But bill payment is only half the story. You need to know how much your bill is, and whether we like bills or not, they are a necesary evil, so lets make them as painless as possible. Bill presentment means receiving and viewing your bill electronically over internet. This bill is, or can be, a replica of your traditional bill, and has all the same accuracy, supplementary information included. If you see your electricity usage on your paper bill you will see precisely the same information on your electronically presented bill.

Once you have received your electronic bill, you can click the bill, and immediately pay it, using your bank/ payment mechanism of choice. The amount to be paid is automatically populated within your online banking, and a simple confimation button is the only remaining step. This is the real convenience of EBPP.

The two services for bill presentment in Canada and the costs associated in setting up the service, have meant that billers chose between EPOST or Webdoxs. This scenario meant that neither would ever be optimal for any one customer – EBPP only works for customers if they can get all their bills in one place. And we know this is a sought after service, because the US experience indicates as much as 30% of internet users are viewing and paying bills on biller sites. This is the other model .. customers visit each biller site; this model is even less convenient that paper mail, yet customers are doing that in the absence of a viable alternative.

Which brings us back to the acquisition of Webdoxs by EPOST. EPOST is Canada Post. If we have to have something run by the government it should be the things that we generally agree as critical, and cannot be subject to the occasional private enterprise lapses we see. Mail is in the category of a regulated utility, along with Water, Natural Gas, and telephone. We expect reasobale pricing, but most of all reliability, security and consistency of service.

This acquisition is a natural. In addition to the foregoing consumer benefits, billers gets a one stop and reach all customer proposition. Banks will benefit from similarly reduced costs, and from increased online banking usage, which in turns makes business casing expansion of online banking easier.