Tenants can securely make payments to their landlords through Facebook

Salix Homes, a social housing provider based in Salford, in the northwest of England, is one of the first housing providers in the country to enable its tenants to pay their rent via Facebook, through its payment gateway partner.

The provider, which manages 8,500 properties across central Salford, has launched an app on its Facebook page enabling tenants to contact the housing provider, pay their rent and report any issues.

"These online and mobile solutions enable us to offer a secure payment gateway via online and mobile channels to our tenants, and then receive the data in a secure and timely manner with the rest of our payment information," said Sian Grant, Director of Customer and Neighbourhood Services at Salix Homes.

To use the service, tenants must have their own Facebook account and visit the Salix Homes Facebook page, where they can navigate through the simple system. Salix Homes has used its current contract (with public sector payments specialist allpay) to enable tenants to make a secure payment to their landlord, once in the app, via a secure PCI-compliant gateway using a payment card.

Once linked through to this outsourced and whitelabelled online payments website, tenants can securely make payments to their landlord, store their details and view their payment history. In addition, Salix Homes also enables tenants to make rent payments using their smartphone, by linking out to allpay's online payments website.

"With more and more people paying online, and with the roll-out of Universal Credit across the country, having these options for our tenants is very important and promotes both financial and digital inclusion," added Grant.

In the last eight months, online and mobile app channels together have secured nearly £100,000 in rental income for Salix Homes, so remain vitally important to the organisation.