Hereford, UK; 3rd September 2007 - allpay.net, the bill payment and collections specialist, today announced that Harvest Housing Group is the first organisation in Britain to trial an interactive TV bill-paying solution. This is based on allpay’s recently launched allpay.tv platform.
Commencing 3rd September, the TV trial allows Harvest tenants the option of paying rent and other household charges over Sky interactive digital television (iDTV).
Armchair bill payments by iDTV just require a swipecard containing the unique payment reference number (issued by Harvest through allpay.net), and a debit or credit card.
Accessing Harvest’s secure payment “channel” is fast and easy: tenants simply press the interactive button on the remote control, navigate to the appropriate menu option, and then enter Harvest’s unique “Sky Key”. After keying their own unique payment reference number into the remote control, the tenant is guided through a couple more simple steps to complete payment transactions. Not only is this new way to pay rent quick and convenient, but the entire system is totally secure and a confirmation number is provided as proof of every transaction.
Paul Warburton, Income & Charge Manager for Harvest, a group of housing associations and companies which provide over 18,000 affordable, good-quality homes across the North West and beyond, comments:
“We are very excited about being the first to market with this type of innovative bill payment trial and feel confident that it will be well-accepted. We feel strongly that it’s our role to make paying rent as accessible as possible to our tenants and are always looking for ways to improve our service in this area.”
He adds:
“When we heard about this from allpay.net, we thought it sounded great and we anticipate growing demand from our tenants for this and other iDTV services, especially with the forthcoming nationwide switchover to digital television.”
Damian Scholes, Director of allpay.net adds:
”We are delighted to be assisting Harvest Housing Group in delivering a highly innovative bill payment solution into their communities. As consumers grow to expect more TV functionality and interactivity, allpay.tv gives them a secure and highly convenient ‘digital age’ method of paying bills from their armchairs using a medium that is user-friendly, familiar and trusted.”
For public sector organisations, as well as providing their customers with added choice and convenience, the allpay.tv 24/7 bill payment channel will assist them in meeting e-government targets for payment service accessibility. allpay.net also offers a broad array of other convenient bill payment channels including over the counter at more than 45,000 outlets, electronic swipecards, Direct Debits, Kiosks, Internet, IVR phone and mobile text messaging solutions.
allpay.net provides standard and bespoke services, offering client organisations the option of branding allpay.tv and other e-payment collection channels in their own liveries. All clients benefit from having their payment data made available the next working day over allpay's WebconnecT secure Internet based communication portal. This allows posting of payments to revenue, housing management and accounting systems as a single data-stream, providing a seamless, cost effective solution to revenue collection.