To continue to provide the electronic payments industry with leading edge products, processes and solutions, Nacha - The Electronic Payments Association's Council for Electronic Billing and Payment (CEBP) has collaborated with members to develop recommendations on ways to approach consumer bill payment through Quick Response (QR) Codes.
The CEBP, an industry group of service providers, users, and stakeholders, drafted proposed guidelines for using QR codes in a variety of bill payment scenarios, and is currently seeking input from the payments industry on these guidelines.
"There has been growing interest in applying QR technology to transaction applications like bill payment to provide consumers with the opportunity to view statements, enroll for eBills, make payments, and set up payees in online banking applications," said Eric Dunn, senior vice president, Strategic Payment Initiatives for Intuit. "As a member of the council, Intuit is pleased to work with NACHA and the CEBP membership on this particular initiative, as it has the industry representation of bill pay stakeholders and the forum needed to develop effective QR guidelines for bill pay."
Quick Response (QR) Encoding for Consumer Bill Pay Guidelines identifies proposed standards for using QR codes in both biller direct and consolidator/aggregator billing and payment models. It contains draft recommendations regarding QR code size, data to be included in the QR code, and layout of the data represented in the QR code, among others. The guidelines will help establish a single QR code format that can reach consumers wherever they view and pay bills.
"To minimize complexity and to facilitate quicker market adoption of QR Codes, it is important to have clear industry standards for bill payment solution providers on how to use QR codes in a variety of bill payment scenarios," said Chris Huppert, chair of CEBP and senior vice president of Wells Fargo. "In this way, bill payment providers can enable QR encoding in a standardized format providing certainty for biller and banking clients, and ensuring a consistent experience for consumers."
Interested individuals can access the guidelines and submit feedback by visiting the following link: https://cebp.nacha.org/QRcodes. All comments must be received by September r 19, 2012. The CEBP will use the input provided to update the guidelines as necessary, and issue a final version for industry usage in the fourth quarter 2012.