Water Districts in Five California Cities Select PayNearMe as Easy, Convenient Way to Pay Utility Bills with Cash
Mountain View, Calif., July 08, 2013 — PayNearMe, the electronic cash transaction network, today announced that water districts in five California cities have agreed to use its electronic cash transaction network to enable area residents to pay utility bills with cash at neighborhood 7-Eleven® stores. This cash payment option was made possible by a partnership between PayNearMe and InfoSend, the billing service provider for Fairfield, Glendale, Padre Dam, Santa Rosa and Tracy, California. Now residents can pay their bills with cash 24 hours a day, seven days a week at locations close to where they live or work. InfoSend serves over 200 municipalities and utility billers, and the two companies anticipate that millions of additional consumers will be able to enjoy the benefits of PayNearMe in the future.
“Despite all of the payments innovation in recent years, cash has not been made any easier to use, and we’re fixing that,” said PayNearMe CEO, Danny Shader. “We make it easy for people to pay their bills with cash. By offering a simple method to pay for utilities, these five municipalities deliver a remarkably convenient service to their residents, while speeding their collections and reducing costs.”
PayNearMes Embedded Barcode Remittance Technology assigns a unique code to each utility bill that InfoSend distributes to city residents. Residents can bring these bills to 7-Eleven and pay with cash in less than 60 seconds. The municipality is notified of their payment in real-time.
For the municipalities, adding 7-Eleven stores as payment locations reduces the number of residents who visit their main office to make payments on-site, which in turn decreases their operating costs. Residents appreciate the convenience of the additional cash payment locations. For example, in the city of Fairfield, over 5% of residents paid their water bill with cash through PayNearMe in 2012.
“As the economy changed, it was clear that the services we offer our community needed to change too. It became increasingly important to offer cash alternatives to the traditional payment avenues, “ said Wade Brown, Financial Services Manager for the City of Fairfield. “Feedback from residents resoundingly shows that it has made their lives so much easier.”
“Our goal is to provide the best customer service possible,” David Guhin, Director of Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa added. “A portion of our customers still pay in cash and our partnership with PayNearMe will create convenient remote payment locations. We are excited about this new service because it improves access to quick and easy payment options for our customers with minimal implementation requirements on our part.”
Because of the partnership between PayNearMe and InfoSend, the municipalities were able to implement PayNearMe with very little technical work.
“This was a really easy decision for us,” added Robert Harmon, Senior Accountant for the City of Tracy. “We’ve seen how successful this service has been in other municipalities and it meets the needs of our cash paying residents. The partnership between PayNearMe and InfoSend works amazingly well for everyone.”
To find out how to get this new cash payment option in your area, please visit http://cash.paynearme.com.
About PayNearMe
PayNearMe is the electronic cash transaction network that enables consumers to pay rent, transfer money, repay loans, buy tickets, make online purchases and much more with cash. Consumers can conveniently make payments 24/7 in their own neighborhood in less than 60 seconds at one of the 9,300 participating 7-Eleven and ACE Cash Express stores across the United States. For more information, please visit http://cash.paynearme.com.
