This recipe outlines a high-level plan for the development needed to support a credit union electing to receive bill pay services from more than one vendor.
For example, a credit union that uses Fiserv bill pay may want to offer the Payveris P2P options to members as well. Or a credit union might want to start moving members to Payveris while still supporting existing enrollees on Fiserv or iPay bill pay. Mergers between credit unions using different bill pay vendors will also benefit from an infrastructure that allows them to retain both vendor relationships, whether for the short or long term.
This recipe also outlines our plans for expanding bill pay services within It’s My Biz 247 Online Banking for Business, as well as other major bill pay projects in the pipeline.
NOTE: All dates and priorities outlined below are tentative and subject to change without notice.
Key Project Components
Following are the key objectives covered under this outline:
- Supporting Payveris P2P for CUs that have a different bill pay vendor
- Supporting multiple bill pay vendors per CU (two or more)
- iPay bill pay via the It’s Me 247 bill pay interface
- Payveris bill pay for It’s My Biz 247 business online banking (Status: To be implemented in the 18.07 release.)
It’s critical to understand that this design assumes that no matter how many vendor interfaces a CU ultimately ends up supporting, either because of mergers or contract expirations, the credit union will select one key vendor to market as their standard offering for new bill pay enrollees. In other words, for a new member just getting started with bill pay a CU would not be able to offer both Fiserv bill pay and Payveris bill pay. One vendor relationship becomes the default for new enrollments, the rest are simply grandfathered in for any members already enrolled in those other services.
Attacking the Project: Development Phases
Except where noted, all phases pertain to bill pay services offered via desktop, mobile web, and API platforms.
| Phase I: Configurations | Before any of the key project components can be attacked, we first need a new infrastructure for the configurations in CU*BASE, creating associated data tables so that supporting multiple vendors is possible. Once all of these configuration structures are in place we can proceed to attack the key project components. There will be three different areas to configure:
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| Phase II: Payveris Bill Pay for Biz | Integrate Payveris bill pay in It’s My Biz 247, so members will have the option to use the business iPay solution (via a “Business Services” button for dual login, as is in place today), along with Payveris bill pay via our user interface, and, if desired, Payveris B2P (business-to-person, which is the same as P2P, but processed differently) as a third option in the Pay & Transfer drop-down.
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| Phase III: Supporting a Separate P2P Vendor | Allow a credit union to choose a P2P vendor independent of their bill pay vendor, most commonly Payveris P2P with Fiserv bill pay. A CU could even offer P2P only with no traditional bill pay at all, if they wished. Status: Implemented in the 19.05 release. |
| Phase IV: Supporting Multiple Bill Pay Vendors | Allow a credit union to elect more than one bill pay vendor, one of which is selected as the default vendor for new enrollees, with the additional interface(s) grandfathered in for existing enrollees. Status: In QC testing, targeting the 19.10 release. NOTE: This will be deployed to all credit unions, including self processors, on the same day (currently set for October 20), which is shortly after the implementation of the 19.10 release for online and Site-4 clients. |
| Phase V: iPay with Our User Interface | Write a user interface for the iPay bill pay solution, integrated into It’s Me 247 similar to our Payveris UI. Status: Implemented with the 19.05 release (rolling out with individual clients). |
Ripple Effects Being Considered in the Design
- Fees to members (adjustments to configs and posting routines to handle fees; still determining whether or not multiple fee schedules will be supported)
NOTE: Remember that the ability to configure and post fees to members is supported only for vendors with whom we have a VAR (value-added retailer) relationship, currently Payveris and iPay. - File transfers to vendors (adjustments to Ops and vendor transmissions to allow for the new infrastructure)
- Billing to credit unions (internal programming to facilitate proper monthly billing)
View related slides from the 2017 Leadership Conference
Other Bill Pay Projects
- A project is in the works to change bill pay to allow for members to be blocked from enrolling in bill pay services (any vendor). This allows a CU to prevent members from using the online enrollment feature. Read more about this in the Fraud-related Projects for 2019-2020 kitchen page.
- We’re in the design phase for changing how EULAs (end-user license agreements) are handled. This is necessary not only to support the new multi-vendor infrastructure outlined above, but will also allow us to move to a system where each service has its own EULA presented at the time of enrollment, instead of putting everything into a “kitchen sink” agreement presented when a member logs in to online banking for the very first time.
- A project was recently started to create a new optional flag so that credit unions can deactivate P2P services from being used via the desktop version of It’s Me 247 online banking. Credit unions believe this will help them reduce instances of fraud related to the desktop platform. Status: Project #51728 is awaiting availability programming resources.
- We are in the design phases of adding multi-factor authentication capabilities (i.e., sending an access code via text/email) for when members update personal information in It’s Me 247, including email address. This is response to numerous requests from CUs specifically related to P2P fraud. See the Authentication Enhancements for Online/Mobile Banking recipe for future updates on this project.
We also continue to gather a wish list for enhancements to the It’s Me 247 Bill Pay solution, including ideas about changes to the user interface as well as other enhancement ideas. At this point we are focusing primarily on the projects outlined above, but we continue to welcome your feedback and requests to help us gather ideas for potential projects down the road.
Chef for this recipe: SettleMINT EFT
