PLANO, Texas—To help CUs satisfy members’ growing demand to pay bills on the fly, Catalyst Corporate FCU has introduced a new app for mobile devices.
Called Picture Pay, the new service allows members to simply snap a photo of their bills with their mobile device to initiate a payment. The service was announced at Catalyst’s 38th annual Economic Forum.
“This new service meets the needs of members who crave convenience and want to eliminate some of the bill paying hassles,” said Karen Coble, Catalyst VP of sales.
Surveys, including a Javelin Research study conducted earlier this year, indicate that consumers are showing a lot of interest in mobile photo bill payment, Catalysts said. “The Javelin study reported that nearly one-in-four Americans paid bills with their smartphones or tablets. Another survey reported that two-million U.S. online households pay at least one bill from their mobile phone each month.”
“Picture Pay streamlines the payment process by identifying and automating payee set-up, removing the biggest barrier to bill pay adoption – the hassle of entering the payee and account information online,” Coble said.
Catalyst has teamed with Allied Payment Network and Malauzai Software to offer the mobile solution. The service is available as a feature of Catalyst Corporate's complete Mobile Banking with Capture Service (turned on at the app level) or incorporated into Catalyst Corporate's stand-alone Mobile Capture service.
In addition to the popular automatic payee set-up feature, other key benefits of the service include:
- The mobile app is password protected.
- The app can be customized with a credit union’s branding.
- Members control when payments are made.
- Picture Pay users have the option to expedite payments for a small convenience fee, which eliminates more expensive late fees for members and generates additional fee revenue for the credit union.
- Images of paid bills are stored online for future access.