Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Getting Listed as a Bill Payee - Online Banking

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Newbie
Feb 20, 2013
3 posts

Getting Listed as a Bill Payee - Online Banking

Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone has gone through the process of getting listed as a Bill Payee for Online banking with the major 4 banks? (Not to pay bills, to accept payment through the various bank's online bill payment platforms)

I have been doing some digging, but documentation appears short. From what I understand, each Bank operates their own Bill Payee List.

Does anyone know what volume is require to get on these lists? Fees associated? Regulations?

I have a few customers asking why they cannot pay using this method.

Thanks for your time,
-Moe
9 replies
Deal Addict
Sep 24, 2010
1921 posts
214 upvotes
I would love to know about it
Deal Addict
Aug 3, 2005
1757 posts
1143 upvotes
Vancouver
Once you call the banks and find out, please post back here to let the rest of us know.
I'll Keep It Short and Sweet. Family, Religion, Friendship ... These Are the Three Demons You Must Slay if You Wish to Succeed in Business
Deal Addict
User avatar
Mar 23, 2008
4059 posts
452 upvotes
Toronto
I would love to know this as well. Please update us when you have more info. I was always under the assumption that bill payment registries was reserved for larger corporations.
Deal Addict
Aug 28, 2007
2167 posts
539 upvotes
Calgary
Here is the scoop. I set it up for one of my businesses as a cheap way to take in cash to avoid those ***** credit card transaction fees. Most of them were free when I started setting them all up in early 2012 and just got it all going when two more of the big boys decided to start charging fees. It was a deal breaker for me and I shut them all down again. You need to have a template for your invoicing which clearly identifies your customer number so it is a problem for ad hoc customer billing. Unless you have a big volume it doesn't pay because you can't just pick some and not all of them or else your customers get ticked that you don't have their bank listed!

Here are the costs:
Credit Union Central (includes all Credit Unions and Canadian Western Bank)
Free

CIBC (includes President’s Choice)
Was free until Dec 2012, then
Monthly Recurring Fee per biller ID.................................... $25.00
Plus $0.055 per payment
Plus $1.25 per report for FAX/email reporting fee


BMO
Free

National Bank
Monthly Recurring Fee.................................................. $25.00

TD Canada Trust
One Time Set-up Fee.................................................. $125.00
Monthly Recurring Maintenance Fee
TD Canada Trust Client.............................. $15.00
Non – TD Canada Trust Client.................... $25.00
Reporting Fee (based on monthly bill payment volume)
0 to 20..................................................... Free for now
21 to 200.................................................. $10.00
Over 200................................................... $10.00 per 100 payments (e.g. 417 payments = $40)

Scotia Bank
One Time Set-up Fee.................................................. $125.00
Monthly Recurring Base Fee............................................ $5.00
Per Report Fee
BNS Biller.................................................... $1.50
Non – BNS Biller.......................................... $2.50
Email Alerts.................................................................... free for now
CSV Reports (optional).................................................... free for now

Royal Bank
One Time Implementation Fee..................................... $125.00
Monthly Recurring Maintenance Fee.............................. $25.00
Daily Payment Advice (by FAX or email).......................... $1.25
Monthly Bill Payment Fee (per payment)
Under 100................................................... $0.065
101 to 1000................................................ $0.060
Over 1000................................................... $0.055

Alberta Treasury Branches
One Time Set Up Fee..................................... $100.00
Deal Addict
Aug 28, 2007
2167 posts
539 upvotes
Calgary
While I'm on my "bank rant" - the process for doing it is as follows:

1/ Go to your own branch and tell them what you want to do. If you can find a person in a branch that even understands what you mean it is a miracle... Go to several other branches including your main branch, repeat this step until you think you are insane.

2/ Eventually you will find a live one who will put you in touch with a person who handles that function. Most are ladies and they are all in Toronto! It would probably be quicker to PM me and and can tell you. That will take you about a month of repeated calls to get their attention.

3/ Once you get to the ladies they will put you through your own bank's process so you are an online biller for your own bank. You need to create account for each customer and send them JPG's of your invoices where the customer ID is located. They have monthly "go-live" dates and you need to submit all the paperwork so it can take about 6-8 weeks for your first one.

4/ In the meantime, they send an internal message to all the ladies at the other banks.

5/ You have to wait while each of them takes their sweet time to contact you.... another month or so.

6/ Two will not contact you so you need to go back to the "lady" at your own bank to repeat step 4

7/ Once you agree to pay their ransom.. er.. I mean fees they will each put you through theior processes and paper work. Credit Unions are free but thier contract requires 4 reams of paper to print! They will drag on for several months as you get each of them done.

8/ Meanwhile you can't yet roll this out fully to all customers... so a big launch announcement is problematic. Meanwhile the first ones are already billing you all sorts of fees for reports filled with blanks.

I gave up at this point and started shutting it all down. 2012 was a fun year with this project!
Member
User avatar
Nov 29, 2005
418 posts
55 upvotes
Just Confused wrote: While I'm on my "bank rant" - the process for doing it is as follows:

1/ Go to your own branch and tell them what you want to do. If you can find a person in a branch that even understands what you mean it is a miracle... Go to several other branches including your main branch, repeat this step until you think you are insane.

2/ Eventually you will find a live one who will put you in touch with a person who handles that function. Most are ladies and they are all in Toronto! It would probably be quicker to PM me and and can tell you. That will take you about a month of repeated calls to get their attention.

3/ Once you get to the ladies they will put you through your own bank's process so you are an online biller for your own bank. You need to create account for each customer and send them JPG's of your invoices where the customer ID is located. They have monthly "go-live" dates and you need to submit all the paperwork so it can take about 6-8 weeks for your first one.

4/ In the meantime, they send an internal message to all the ladies at the other banks.

5/ You have to wait while each of them takes their sweet time to contact you.... another month or so.

6/ Two will not contact you so you need to go back to the "lady" at your own bank to repeat step 4

7/ Once you agree to pay their ransom.. er.. I mean fees they will each put you through theior processes and paper work. Credit Unions are free but thier contract requires 4 reams of paper to print! They will drag on for several months as you get each of them done.

8/ Meanwhile you can't yet roll this out fully to all customers... so a big launch announcement is problematic. Meanwhile the first ones are already billing you all sorts of fees for reports filled with blanks.

I gave up at this point and started shutting it all down. 2012 was a fun year with this project!
thanks for the awesome review.

few questions
- do you have to be a business to be registered with as bill payee at the back? (can you be an individual and use it to collect rent payment?)
- once you register as bill payee would you be available at all the bank? (or only at the certain banks)
- do you know how to get set up at western union for bill payment?
- is there service that cater in US dollar payment form USA?

thank you in advance.
-
:)
Deal Addict
Aug 28, 2007
2167 posts
539 upvotes
Calgary
To answer your questions:

1/ I never came across anything that would prevent an individual from doing it, but honestly, I wasn't looking for that either. I can't think of any reason why not. However, as you can see from the cost items from my post two years ago, it will cost you about $500 to set it up and recurring fees of nearly $100 a month to keep it running. You need to have a standard format invoice to mail out each month so the banks can have the image loaded to tell their customers where to find their account number. That is considerable fixed overhead just for the convenience of not collecting rent cheques from your tenants.

2/ Yes, you can choose which ones you want to register with, but it wouldn't be practical to only have a few as your tenants would complain. If you do it, you'd have to register with each bank. I alluded to how tedious that process was at each of them. I spent almost a year setting it up with them all!

3/ Western Union is not one of the big players in Canadian banking so they weren't integrated with the big 5 on the list. My customers aren't in that market space so I didn't pursue them. I imagine you would just start digging with them directly for an answer.

4/ Payments in US dollars and Payments from US residents are two whole other areas of complexity you would need to look into separately. The "Bill Payer" feature is located on banking websites so by necessity would be a domestic activity. Most Canadian banks have US dollar denominated accounts, so they probably have some sort of "Bill Payer" feature enabled. I don't keep my US dollars in Canada, so I don't know. You could easily open up your own account at your bank and see. However, for domestic activity, each country would have it's own conventions, rules & policies. On the other hand, moving money across borders is a completely different issue and by definition is an international activity.
Sr. Member
Nov 23, 2004
719 posts
21 upvotes
Quarry Bay
Payments from USA customers with US bank accounts are a different animal. The way bill pay works in the US is completely different than in Canada. Many banks don't even run their own bill pay system: it's outsourced to other companies such as iPay. You will notice that the bill pay system is on a completely different site (for smaller banks) than their own domain as a result.

The way US bill pay works is you can pay anyone, literally. If you want to pay your friend, you can key their name in along with their address and bank details. If you have the banking info it will send money electronically via ACH. If not, the bill pay service will mail out a check. For businesses, you type in the name of the company you wish to pay and their address and ZIP code. If the bill pay company can, it will send the funds electronically. If not, they will cut the check on your behalf.

Wish they had something like this in Canada!

- Jason
Member
User avatar
Nov 29, 2005
418 posts
55 upvotes
so I have contacted the western union, they have something called "quick collect" which similar to to the bill payment services that are run by the major banks, minimum requirement is 100 transaction as of 2015 (it has increased from 2014 which was 50 transaction). If you have 100 transaction that will go through western union each month then you are good to register with them as quick-collect payee. Any western union world wide will accept payment from your customers.

info: http://westernunioncanada.ca/pay-bills/


Because my business don't have minimum required transaction every month; my second option is to find a bill payment service which is registered with western union.

So the transaction will be like this. Customer go and pays in Western Union to the bill-payment-service, then bill-payment-service send me the payment to me or my bank?

Is there a bill payment service that is registered with western union, that can transmit payment to small businesses?
If anyone comes aware of such company please let me know.
:)

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