Paying bills is no fun for most but a real hassle for those who rely primarily on cash. During the pandemic, when utility companies and other billers closed their offices, cash payers really had few options to stay current. As the American Banker reported, a partnership between doxo, a direct-to-consumer bill pay provider, and InComm will help to give cash bill payers more options by turning thousands of retailers in InComm’s VanillaDirect network into bill payment locations by connecting them to the thousands of billers associated with doxo. It’s not free, but its far better than getting hit with a late fee:
The bill-payments firm Doxo has signed a deal with InComm Payments, which has connections to more than 65,000 retail stores, to make it easier for cash-dependent consumers to pay bills in person.
Consumers using Doxo’s app may request a bar code from a biller and visit a store in InComm’s VanillaDirect retail network to pay in person. The partnership expands InComm’s bill-payment reach by adding Doxo’s 100,000 billers, including utilities and thousands of landlords, to InComm’s, according to a release.
Doxo charges $2.50 for cash bill payments and makes a large number of billers eligible for walk-in cash payments at a time when the pandemic has closed many offices where consumers previously paid bills in person, according to Roger Parks, Doxo’s vice president of business development.
“Over the last year in many towns across the U.S., COVID-19 has closed a lot of city offices for people who always paid their water or electric bills in cash, increasing demand for other options,” said Parks, who co-founded Doxo in 2008.
Doxo, which is based in Seattle, has more than 5 million users of its bill-payment app. InComm’s VanillaDirect platform already supported payments for many billers including most wireless service carriers at stores including Walgreens, CVS, 7-Eleven and Dollar General.
“Doxo has a large base of biller partners and a large base of subscription partners, and they recognized a need for another payment option to meet the needs of a customer segment that is often overlooked,” the Atlanta-based InComm said in an emailed statement.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit and Alternative Products Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
