The Georgia Power payment option was facilitated by a partnership between PayGo Utilities, a metro Atlanta-based software provider, and InComm, an Atlanta financial technology firm that creates the barcode utility that customers can scan at a store checkout counter to make their payments. Customers can make full or partial payments on their utility bills at the same time they buy milk and other products, and the payment is credited to their account within minutes. The company found that nearly 70 percent of customers had shifted from using traditional business offices and mail to electronic payments and authorized payment locations. Two years ago, Atlanta-based Georgia Power began offering a service that would allow its customers to pay their bills in cash at some popular retail locations by scanning a barcode at the checkout counter. "Payments themselves aren’t going to change someone’s economic resilience," Washington said, "but payment innovations matched with thoughtful partnerships will give consumers more options instead of one size fits all." Buy some milk, pay some bills Jessica Washington, a payments risk expert with the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed, expects more products catering to low- and moderate-income consumers to be available in the future. payment card transactions flow through the area, has become known as "Transaction Alley." Metro Atlanta, which sees more than 70 percent of U.S. Gone are the days when electricity and natural gas bills could only be paid by mail or required waiting in long lines at a payment office.Īcross the Atlanta Fed's district, which includes Alabama, Georgia, and Florida and parts of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee, utility companies are partnering with payment providers to simplify payment for customers, especially those who mainly pay with cash or are unbanked or underbanked. Utility bill-payment services are gaining a firmer foothold, made possible by technologies that connect power companies and payment processors with different points of sale. Nowhere is that potential becoming more evident than the utilities sector.
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