Digital wallets have quickly evolved from a hot payment trend to an essential channel for a well-rounded, omni-channel bill payment experience. In 2020, digital wallet adoption rose to 55% of consumers worldwide, and industry experts predict that this global adoption will reach 75% by 2025. This rapid acceleration is partially due to the global health situation, which quickly made contactless payments a critical need for senior customers and immunocompromised folks. 

With this type of dominating adoption, it’s clear that digital wallets have become a sought-after channel for payments – but what about for paying bills? When we surveyed over 1,200 bill payers from across the country for our upcoming State of Online Payment survey (check out the 2020 State of Online Payments report here in the meantime!) 51% of respondents across all ages said they use digital wallets to pay at least some of their bills. 

To get billers up to speed on the ins and outs of digital wallets and how organizations like yours can benefit from offering this payment channel on the rise, InvoiceCloud recently hosted a live webinar with myself and my colleague, VP of Processing Transformation, Sara Faied. If you missed our digital wallet 101, don’t worry – we’re going to take this time to review some of the basics we covered in the webinar, right here (or if you’d rather watch the webinar, scroll to the bottom of the blog for a free recording you can watch anytime). 

What are digital wallets? 

Digital wallets are essentially virtual wallets that store payment card information on a mobile device. Customers only need to enter their payment information once to use this digital option for both in-store and online purchases. The advent of digital wallets started with the release of Apple Pay in 2014, and this digital payment method has quickly become a payments staple in the years since. 

Where can you use digital wallets? 

You can use digital wallets in a number of places, in your favorite store to make a retail purchase as well as online whether that is for shopping or paying bills online or on your mobile device. 

When can you use digital wallets? 

That’s the beauty of digital wallets – you can really use them any time you make a purchase on your mobile device. As we’ve mentioned, you only have to store the information in your phone once to quickly use the wallet anytime. You can also use a digital wallet at any in-store location if the merchant accepts digital wallets at their point of sale (POS) system (and the number of merchants that do accept this payment option continues to rise). 

Why would someone use one?

You may have already guessed the first reason why: With the ability to save your payment information on a device you nearly always have on you, digital wallets provide an easier and quicker way to pay. 

Plus, digital wallets are a secure way to make payments. The Identity Theft Resource Center says that digital wallets rely on proven security measures such as two-factor authentication and PINs that can only be used once. These wallets also use encryption technology to scramble the financial and password information of users, making it more difficult for hackers to intercept this information when users are making purchases with their digital wallets. 

How do digital wallets work for bill collection? 

Digital wallets all work basically the same way: You sign up for the wallet (or wallets) of your choice, providing a username, email, and password. After doing that just one time, you can then access your wallet from your phone, laptop, tablet, or other devices. Once you’ve set up a wallet, you can connect different methods of payment to it, including credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts. 

To make an online payment for bill collection, payers simply select the digital wallet of their choice as a payment option in the drop-down menu of your online/mobile bill payment portal. The cross-functionality of the digital wallet seamlessly streamlines the payment process, saving customers from repeatedly entering card information and creating unparalleled ease of use. 

What are the benefits of digital wallets for billers? 

Offering digital wallet options for bill payments can help your organization: 

• Reduce the volume of payment-related phone calls 
• Reduce the volumes of in-person customer visits
• Guarantee more consistent, on-time collections
• Decrease organizational costs associated with printing and mailing paper bills
• Improve customer satisfaction and retention rates (where applicable) as a result of meeting modern customer expectations for bill payment 

Which digital wallets does InvoiceCloud provide for billers? 

All InvoiceCloud, we’re always listening for what payment channels your customers want to use and expanding our product offering according to our users’ demands.  

For digital wallet options, all InvoiceCloud billers currently have access to: 

• PayPal 
• Venmo 
• ApplePay 
• and GooglePay 

If you asked most people to pull out their smartphones right now, they’ll most likely have the PayPal and Venmo apps downloaded on them. Then, depending on the type of device you have, you’ll either have ApplePay or GooglePay, or both, allowing our billers to truly cover the gamete with these digital wallet options.  

If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of digital wallets or hear how InvoiceCloud makes this modern payment essential easy to use, watch the full on-demand webinar below.