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Simplification of

Public Utility Bill Payment System

Recommendations by the Technical Committee

Access to information Programme

BGD/04/004, Prime Minister’s Office

Table of Contents

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Introduction ............................................................................... 3

Vision.......................................................................................... 4

Background ................................................................................ 4

Present status of Electronic Payment System in Bangladesh .... 6

Ongoing Initiatives ..................................................................... 8

Observations............................................................................. 10

General Recommendations ...................................................... 14

Short Term Goals: ................................................................... 16

Long Term Goals: ................................................................. 17

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Introduction

As more and more utility services are provided to the mass people of the country, the more it is getting difficult for people to follow the traditional way of paying the utility bills standing in big queues. Alternatives should be adapted as the technology is available. To ease the payment of utility bills the electronic payment should be introduced to the majority of people.

When the Electronic Utility Bill System is introduced people will be able to pay their daily utility bills through their home PCs, kiosks, mobile phones, cyber café etc. They can still have the option of paying the bills in the public offices.

Banks will also play an important role as the transactions would take place using ATM machines, POS, credit/debit cards, Internet Banking etc.

Some utility service providers and some banks are already carrying out these tasks. But to get these services to the majority of the people more organizations in both Government and Private sector needs to come forward.

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The introduction of the Electronic Utility bill Payment System will take us step forward in the overall development of the e-Governance of the country.

Vision The vision is for any subscriber of public utility service in the country, living whether in rural or urban area, to be able to pay their utility bills whenever it is convenient to them, through any channel that is convenient for them.

Background To introduce electronic utility bill payment system a meeting was held on 5 July 2006 at PMO presided by Dr. Kamal Uddin Siddiqqui, Principal Secretary to the Honorable Prime Minister. The participants were all stakeholders from both government and private sectors. One of the decisions of that meeting was that all the relevant organizations would send their Work Plan regarding the implementation of the Electronic Utility Bill Payment System by 23 July 2006. A technical committee would be formed to provide their suggestion and recommendations on the proposed Work Plans.

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A Technical Committee was formed by the PMO and the committee members sat several times to discuss about the existing pros and cons. They made some recommendations for the simplification of the Electronic Utility Bill Payment.

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Present status of Electronic Payment System in Bangladesh At present several utility service providers along with many banks have started using electronic payment system in Bangladesh. But the system has still not reached the mass majority of people in the country. Bangladesh Bank has posted an “ICT Guideline” in their web site for the banks and financial institutes to create their own ICT Policy for the security of the online transactions. Nationalized banks like Sonali, Janata, Agrani and private banks like DBBL, Eastern Bank, Standard Chartered, and HSBC etc are using ATMs and POS for payment of utility bills electronically. It is seen that Ready Cash card, Q-Cash card ATMs and POS are the mostly used options for the electronic payment. One of the problems for this is that these services are mostly available in big cities and towns. The people living in remote villages still have no idea that such a service is available. Also the card holder has to be a client of service providing bank to use the ATMs. Other options available also include Electronic Banking which is done by some banks through which the utility bill can be paid over Internet. But this service is yet to be started by other banks. Bangladesh Bank has already started a project on Automatic Clearing House under which the electronic banking will be implemented in the future.

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The utility service providers have also taken several steps so that they can work along with the banks to provide the service of electronic payment. PDB, DESA, WASA, BTTB, Titas Gas, DESCO, Grameen Phone etc have all made several contracts with different banks to pay their bills electronically using ATMs and other channels. Several Works are still getting carried away by these organizations to introduce new options of electronic payment. Other government and non-government organizations are also making changes in their infrastructure to make them capable of handling electronic payments.

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Ongoing Initiatives The organizations who have already introduced electronic payment system are taking new initiatives to add different options with the ongoing payment system. And the organizations who still do not have the electronic payment system are taking initiatives to be able to do so.

Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) has taken a pilot project for payment of Electrical Bill using SMS through mobile phone network as pilot project in Chittagong Zone. The project has already been approved by the board and scheduled to be completed by December 2006. In this regard BPDB already has made several discussions with Grameen Phone.

Other organizations like DESA are also taking similar initiatives to start SMS utility payment and introduce online payment system through internet.

The organizations who are still handling the customer’s ledger management manually are working to computerize them. Organizations are also working to make computerized billing for all the customers. BTTB has also taken a project to modernize its Subscriber Ledger Management System that will complete soon. Through this project

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BTTB’s almost all potential Revenue offices will come under a computer network.

Banks are taking the initiatives to start Online Banking under which their customers will be able to pay their utility bills through internet any time during the day.

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Observations Several observations were made by the Technical Committee during their discussion. Some of them are:-

i. Almost all public utility service providing organizations have no specialized Customer care and Marketing sections. These sections are normally handle customer problems and circulate different service features to the customers. Top management can get relevant feedbacks of the field level problems through these sections.

ii. One of the biggest technical problems is the absence of a standard database management of the utility service providers. As most of the utility service providers require that the amount paid is exactly as the amount mentioned in the bill (which might be Tk. X/- and Y paisa), the service provider for not having a standard database cannot maintain a debit/credit ledger; for which the customer gets in the trouble of paying the exact amount and not more as advance.

iii. Another problem with the same situation is the service provider for not being online with the

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bank cannot reconcile the amount paid with the billed amount.

iv. Data collection was another problem that was observed. In case of DESA, WASA and PDB in particular this problem exists. As the meters readings are not at their own premises but at the customer’s place, it takes longer time for the whole billing procedure. Service providers like telephone operators do not have this problem as the billing is done at their own premises.

v. There was an observation made regarding Ready Cash card payment. Even though Ready Cash card is one of the most favored ways it is still not successful. Many people still doesn’t know what Ready Cash card is or how to use it. The reason for it to be observed was lack of publicity.

vi. The problem regarding payment gateway was observed. Due to some policy matters electronic transfer among two banks is still not possible. It would be good to have two different banks inside the country having electronic transfer.

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vii. It was also observed that there is only couple of thousand bank branches throughout the country and there is almost the whole country needing to pay for the utility services. So, it is very important that channels of bank transaction should be increased.

viii. Regarding the above mentioned observation it was then noticed that the POS system of mobile operators does not require any bank involvement from the customer’s part and it didn’t have any time constraint for payment. If the other utility service providers could use a similar method then it would definitely ease the payment hassle for the customers.

ix. Information regarding billing is not easily available from many of the service providers. So if the client was able to see the billing status on the internet and then after paying could be notified immediately then the client would know exactly what his billing status is.

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General Recommendations After much consideration the following recommendations were made.

i. Launching of web page of all the service utility providers giving billing status information with at least daily updates.

ii. The consumers should be able to download the bill and that bill should be accepted as proof when paid with.

iii. The utility providers, who already have the option of electronic bill payment, should increase the number of distribution channels for payments and find newer ways so that more people can pay their utility bills electronically.

iv. There should be Computerized Ledger for all the utility service providers. They should maintain a standard database of all the clients so that there could be instant update as soon as the bill is paid.

v. The utility service provider who does not yet have the option for electronic bill payment must have some option for it by March 2007 and let everybody know about it.

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vi. Increase the Bank payment transaction channels.

vii. A proposal to Bangladesh Bank regarding bank to bank automatic online transaction.

viii. Discussion with Telecom Operators with all the utility service providers regarding collection of utility payment of bills through authorized POS.

ix. If not possible to computerize all the sections of the bill collecting organizations, at least they should install a computer at the collecting points, so that offline softcopy can be transferred in short time.

x. The utility service providers will make necessary arrangements with the banks and the partner Telecom operator to have their database installed, so that when a subscriber comes to pay the bill the bank will be able to provide the bill and take care of it. This will be good particularly for the utility service providers who have the problem of exact amount payment.

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Short Term Goals: I. To have the optimum use of the existing

technologies for the payment of bills electronically.

II. To discuss with Bangladesh Bank regarding their policy whether there could be any conflict if someone else collects the bills other than the bank from the subscribers.

III. To make the banks being able to collect any public utility bills at any branches (i.e. over the counter).

IV. To make people aware of the electronic ways of paying the public utility bills through mass media.

Long Term Goals: I. All public utility service providers would

be collecting theirs bills in the traditional way as well as electronically.

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II. For all the banks to be able to collect any public utility bill even if that person is not a client of that particular bank.

III. Electronic Gateway of Bangladesh Bank providing instant Bank to Bank Electronic transfer and also Bank to Utility Service Provider transfer of money for bill update.

IV. Utility service providers is to coordinate among each other to align towards a common “due” date and “same payment channels” for each location to eliminate the mass pain of consumers due to multiple forced visits to different banks/branches for different utility bill payment.

V. All subscribers of public utility services would be able to provide their bills through any of their convenient channel (Banks, POS, SMS, Internet, ATMs etc.) at their own convenient time.