Once upon a time paying utility bills on time was a task, particularly for working professionals. One had to visit the local office and stand in queue to pay power bills, telephone bills and so on. And often keeping up with the last date was hard resulting in a penalty.
Do you miss out on last payment days of your utility bills?
Do you often wish for an assistant to do this job for you?
Well, we have a found many smart ways to help you pay your utility bills efficiently using technology.
In the last few years, there’s paradigm shift in the way people transact. Technology back by hi-speed internet connection has played a role of an enabler; made life easy. Across age groups and generations, today ‘online’ has become a way of life with enough security measures in place.
Here are some benefits online payment systems have brought:
- Saves time;
- Save energy (otherwise spent on commuting and waiting in queues to pay utility bills);
- Saves money (on commuting, plus you benefit from e-coupons/promo codes/ cashbacks);
- Convenience;
- Virtually eliminated many errors (with efficient processes & systems built); and
- Facilitates you to be in better control of your personal finance
Today online payment systems/platforms are available in areas such as investing, insurance, shopping, education, donations, journals and periodical subscriptions, professional fees, tax payments, and for a variety of utilities viz. landline bills, mobile bills, piped gas bills, electricity bills, DTH recharge, data card recharge, toll payments, credit card bills, and so on.
There many players offering transaction platforms. Even banks offer a platform/facility to pay a various utility bills, taxes, credit card bills; plus help you invest and insure online.
6 Smart ways of paying your utility bills are as follows:
- Internet banking
Internet banking is a convenient way to bank–––anytime, anywhere–––for all Savings and Current account holders. Here, you need not create a separate log in. You can just login into your internet banking account and directly make an online payment to your biller.
Many banks provide a host of benefits with a user-friendly dashboard at disposal. It not only enables you to pay utility bills, transact, and invest, but even allows you to have better control while managing personal finances.
Once your bill payments are paid online, you can keep a track of your expenses and tweak them as and when needed.
Some of the common options for paying bills via internet banking are as follows:
- Auto pay on the due date (which will be automatically schedule the bill payment on the due date debiting your account);
- Confirm & Pay; and
- One-time Payment
Amongst these the best option is Auto-pay, whereby once you store your bill details, from next month bill amount will be automatically debited from your account. Hence, you need not worry now, as the system records your bill cycle naturally.
And once the bill is paid, you would receive an e-mail confirmation (which serves as a receipt) or SMS alert, and the transaction reflects in your bank account as well.
If you want to pay the bill by confirming the details every month, you can do that as well with Confirm & Pay option.
Else, you can choose to enter the bill details every time you wish to make a payment.
Alternatively, you can even use the Direct Debit facility that allows you to make online payments at various merchants. And here the best past is that, there is no need to remember the debit card details. All you need is to log-in to net banking and authenticate the transaction.
- Mobile banking
Your smartphone is a smart tool, if used effectively. With a Mobile Banking App installed on your smartphone and registration completed, banking is literally at your fingertips. It empowers you do much more like paying various utility bills, make travel plans, shop, invest, avail loans, mange your account, make a cheque book request, and so on.
The best part is you can earn cash-backs/discounts using a promo-codes and/or reward points as you make payments.
- Debit Card
Your debit card linked to the savings account is also a medium to your utility bills. It is convenient and can be used across biller sites. You don’t need to carry wads of cash to pay the monthly outgoings for the utility bills.
Certain debit cards offer cash-backs while you pay particular utility bills, which aid you save money as you spend.
- Credit cards
Like debit cards, you can also use your credit card to defray utility bills. Using the credit card allows you to use the free credit period upto 50 days, earn reward points (which can utilised to purchase select merchandise), and avail of exciting cash-back/discount offers –– help you save money.
- Mobile wallets
With a worthy mobile wallet, today your smartphone is virtually a wallet. You don’t need to carry wads of cash, as the concept has been widely accepted across points of sales and services.
Many mobile wallets have integrated utility billers, facilitate online shopping, and enable travel booking among other things at your fingertips, anytime and anywhere. They run compelling cash-backs/discounts offers which you can’t afford to miss.
Keeping a track of your digi-money is not a concern; because mobile wallets provide an instant accessible statement/passbook option so you can be in complete control of your personal finances. There’s also an option to transfer the idle money from your mobile wallet to your bank account.
- UPI App
The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) was launched by the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI)—— which went live last year, has further been a boon and brought a revolutionary change in the way transactions are performed. UPI runs on Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) platform, and hence, the service is available 24X7. A sizeable number of banks today have their UPI apps.
Here are 7 key benefits of the UPI app:
- Facilitates quick, easy, cheapest way of money transfer anytime, anywhere
- You are not required to share your bank details –– simply transact using a Virtual Payment Address (VPA)
- No need to share or remember sensitive information
- You can link multiple accounts using one UPI based app and will no longer need different apps of different banks
- The QR Code Scan feature facilitates payment for online as well as offline purchases. All transactions are possible through this one app, as all your accounts can be linked to a single window.
- Collect Payment service has made it easier to ask for payments
- Fund settlement is on real-time basis
- Besides the above key benefits, most UPI apps also offer a dashboard for you to do a variety of things.
To pay your utility bills, make it a point to use the UPI app by downloading it on your smartphone.
Using UPI is a 5-step process. Here are the directions...
- Download the App from the Playstore
- Link the bank account to the App
- Create a Unique ID
- Link the Aadhaar to it
- Set a PIN
And you are ready to use the UPI APP.
Please note, unlike a mobile wallet, there is no concept of loading money into UPI. It’s a direct account to account transfer using your VPA. Plus, the daily transaction limit for UPI apps is Rs 1 lakh, much higher than mobile wallets.
To Sum-up…
In this era of technology and plastic money, be smart, bank smart! Set a calendar with alerts to pay your utility bills on time; it can even earn you points for a good credit score !
While using these smart ways to make routine payments, monitor your expenses closely and spend on necessities only. Remember, every penny saved is a penny earned.
Do you think app-based real-time payment will discourage the use of cash in India? Register your views in the comments section below.
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Happy Banking!
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