Kyivans now have a limited opportunity to pay phone and electric bills using the Internet, and the company that designed the service says that there's more to come.
Standing in line at the bank or post office to pay bills may soon be a part of the past, if a Kyiv company has its way. The company, Portmone, offers a service that allows Kyiv residents to pay telephone, utility and other bills using the Internet or mobile phone and a credit card.
The company has developed a Web site and WAP portal that allow customers to receive and pay bills for a variety of services. The company, part of the Efors Grup holding, was created in 2002 to develop a domestic electronic billing and payment system.
Technical Director Ihor Horin said that although Internet billing is widespread in more developed countries, the concept is new in Ukraine.
Horin said the decision was made to launch the project when it became clear that there were enough credit card holders in Ukraine to make the venture profitable. There are nearly 5 million Visa and Mastercard holders in Ukraine, he said.
“The most encouraging thing is not the number of cardholders, but that the number doubles every year,” said Horin. He estimated the number of Internet users in the country at between 1 million and 1.5 million.
The Portmone system was established as an intermediary service, providing customers with Internet billing and payment options for a wide range of services, including public utilities, electricity, telephone, child care, insurance and bank loans. Customers access their accounts through Portmone’s Web and WAP sites, where they will be notified of new charges and invoices by e‑mail and SMS text messages. Visa and Mastercard payments can be made on the Portmone Web site.
Portmone presently offers online billing for Ukrtelecom and Utel, payment of Kyiv public utility bills, Kyivenergo, ASKA‑Zhyznj insurance, Aval Bank and a number of childcare services. After registering with the site, users select the specific accounts they wish to view online.
At the present time, however, it is only possible to pay bills for Utel and public utilities online.
Horin said that although the use of electronic billing has good prospects, the company must overcome Ukrainians’ reluctance to trust and adopt new or progressive ideas.
Payments made through the Portmone system are processed by Nadra bank, itself a major issuer of credit and debit cards. Nadra has distributed more than 380,000 cards, making the bank the country’s third largest card issuer.
Ihor Doroshenko, deputy head of Nadra’s card business department, said that the bank expects to expand client services and boost credit card use through Portmone’s system.
“We expect that due to Portmone’s services the use of cashless settlements will increase. Besides this, we expect that later, our clients will be able to pay loans received from Nadra through Portmone,” said Doroshenko.
Despite the fact that Portmone’s target group is rather small, Doroshenko said those who use the service are generally easy to reach.
He said that 60 percent of the nation’s Internet users and the majority of credit card holders live in Kyiv. These people are capable of paying for the new service,” he said.
Online bill paying services work well for companies as well as consumers, Horin said. By making it easier to pay bills, the likeliness of timely payments increases, said Horin. He expects that the new project will be popular with Ukrainians who temporarily live or travel abroad, in addition to those simply fed up with waiting in lines.
“People have the money to pay their bills,” he said. “They just don’t have time to stand in long lines to pay them.”
“Reminding people about the necessity to pay bills in a timely manner also makes them more disciplined. Our experience shows that 60 percent of Portmone users pay two to three days after the account is billed,” said Horin.
More timely payments benefit the companies issuing the bills, he said. In addition to getting paid faster, firms spend less time and money on the manual labor needed to send out bills. The system also encourages people to get plastic debit and credit cards, he said.
Portmone’s advantage may also be its main weakness. The system can only be used to pay bills sent by companies with which Portmone has agreements.
“If we do not have an agreement with the kindergarten which your child attends, you will not be able to pay for it [through the Portmone service],” said Horin.
The company plans to add merchants to the system quickly. It is negotiating with Volia Cable as well as language schools, insurance companies, banks offering loans, mobile phone operators and regional oblenergos.
Horin said that Portmone launched the system a year ago, but resisted an official launch until technical issues were ironed out.
“We spent a year building good, dedicated lines to guarantee quick system operation. We also made a large investment to create a reliable security system. Not even Portmone employees have access to the users’ credit card information,” said Horin.
Horin wouldn’t disclose how many users Portmone has acquired, but did say the number of users is tripling each month.
Portmone charges users Hr 2 per month for its services. The company plans to serve 300,000 customers by the end of the year. He said that at minimum, the company wants to attract 50,000 users by year‑end.
