'International E-Billing Market Swings to More 'PUSH' than 'PULL' - a word from our Global CEO, Michael Wright

A revolution is stirring in the electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) industry with a concerted shift towards a model that "pushes" the bill to the customer. Requirements for greater user adoption are driving the move from "Pull" to "Push" in the form of an encrypted email. The email bill has functionality for easy payment but also includes an element of "pull" methodology in the form of a link back to a website allowing customers to analyze the invoice and view historical accounts.

"There is a huge groundswell of acceptance and rising demand for EBPP technology, purely because e-billing is such an obviously beneficial concept," says Michael Wright, CEO of international electronic messaging specialist Striata.

"Our international experience through our offices and operations in the US, Australia, Africa and the UK and with partners elsewhere, is that the pull methodology has reached its ceiling, primarily because it is human nature to not want to do something that one did not have to do before. Now we are seeing rising acceptance of push methodology which sends an e-mail invoice directly to the debtor. By combining this with optional pull functionality in a hybrid model, market needs are being met."

The push method includes functionality that allows the debtor to process the invoice in his own e-mail environment as opposed to pull methodology which requires him to go to the creditor's website in order to pay. The push method does not require the debtor to do anything more than a normal paper invoice would, but is faster and easier.

The push method involves an encrypted email that delivers the invoice to the debtor with built-in functionality within the email that offers the opportunity to pay the debt electronically directly to the creditor. It is a very simple process that takes just one or two mouse clicks instead of the much more complicated sequence of events at the debtor's website required by the pull method, usually as many as nine clicks.