What Is Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP)?

If you're tired of paying your bills in person, now there's an easier way! A bill is a request for money. You know, like when your landlord asks for rent, or your phone company sends you a notice that it's time to pay up. But what if you could pay all of your bills from the comfort of your couch? Enter electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP). This process allows the creation and delivery of bills and facilitates the payment of those invoices over the Internet. The process or service is primarily used by retail, financial services, telecommunications providers, and utility providers. You'll not believe this, but paying your bills online is still a work in progress. Sure, you can view your credit card bills and utility bills over the Internet—but if you want to pay them, you have to go through a separate process. It's almost like having two different bill-paying systems: one for viewing and one for paying. And we all know how much fun it is to log into two other systems simultaneously! As with everything else we do on the web, we want to make this easier for you. So we're working with all our vendors to create a single system that will allow you to view and pay your bills from one place—no matter where they come from or how often they come around. The electronic bill presentation and payment (EBPP) industry has been proliferating, but financial institutions have struggled to keep up. Banks are the gatekeepers to most people's money, so they're understandably reluctant to let go of their cash-management services. They also disagree about what standards should be used for security and implementation. Customers who want to pay bills online often wait for their banks to get on board with this new technology.