Mastercard’s Bill Pay Exchange Service Expands

Mastercard Inc. says a number of new partners have signed on to use or test its Mastercard Bill Pay Exchange platform, including Consolidated Edison Co. of New York (ConEd), one of the nation’s largest utilities.

Unveiled a year ago, Bill Pay Exchange enables consumers using their bank or credit union’s online site or mobile app to view and pay bills through a credit or debit card, or through non-card options such as real-time payment systems or bank-account withdrawals. Mastercard’s aim is for its client financial institutions to capture payments from biller-direct sites, which so far have proven more popular with consumers than banks’ bill-pay services.

Besides ConEd, whose service territory includes New York City and Westchester County just to the north, other new users on the platform include Avidia Bank, a community bank based in Hudson, Mass., and OSG Billing Services, a provider of business-to-consumer payment services, e-billing, and business-to-business invoicing services. Previously announced partners include processor Aliaswire Inc. and Transactis Inc., a bill-pay services provider that Mastercard acquired this spring.

“ConEd is committed to continuously improving our billing and payment options for our customers,” Frank D’Amadeo, ConEd’s director of treasury, said in a news release. “By delivering bills directly to our customers’ banks, they have a new option to simplify how they can see and pay their bills.”

Mastercard also said it will be testing Bill Pay Exchange with eight other firms working in various niches of the bill-pay and presentment space. They are Best Digital Solutions, Inlet LLC, Nordis Technologies Inc., Papaya Payments, Payrailz, Plastiq Inc., R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., and Synapse Financial Technologies Inc. If the tests are successful, these companies could bring Bill Payment Exchange to their own biller and financial clients.

“Since first announcing Bill Pay Exchange, Mastercard has continued to evolve this digital solution to benefit consumers, billers and financial institutions alike,” Ronald Shultz, Mastercard’s executive vice president of new payment flows for North America, said in the release. “With the help of our trusted pilot partners, this solution will bring speed, transparency, and efficiency to bill payments for the masses.”