Italian utility giant Enel has connected to EBA Clearing's MyBank service, offering customers the option to pay their gas and electricity bills from within a bank Web site.
The MyBank service lets Enel Energia's millions of customers pay their bills via Sepa Credit Transfer. From the MyEnel customer pages, users are routed directly to their online banking portal, where, as soon as they log in, they find a filled-in form with all the payment details for approval.
Giovanni Vattani, head, payment systems, Enel market division Italy, says: "MyBank will provide us with real-time information about authorised payments, speed up our reconciliation processes and reduce fraud."
Vattani says that the service could be rolled out to customers across other European countries and is also anticipating support for mobile apps and the creation of direct debit e-mandates.
Enel is connecting to MyBank via UniCredit, with tech support from SIA, which has delivered validation and routing services as well as a virtual point of sale.
Barbara Sacchi, e-payments, UniCredit Global Transaction Banking, says: "Thanks to the many benefits it provides to e-merchants and other e-billers, MyBank has attracted substantial interest from our corporate customers before we have even started promoting it to them."
The italian banking community has committed to roll-out MYBank nationally, with up to 100 institutions set to join the platform by the end of the year.