[blackwasp]

Bill payment has come a long way. I remember standing in a queue with my dad when I was little, for the payment of electricity and telephone bills. We had to go to their respective offices and stand in a pretty long line (weirdly, you still see people doing that today). Almost all bills can now be paid online in a jiffy.

Which is your preferred way to pay bills? Listing out some of the most common ones:

Bill payment gateways: BillDesk and Bharat Bill Pay are the top two names that come up. I have used BillDesk and it works as intended. You register the billers and then make payments via bank transfer / credit or debit cards. Bharat Bill Pay is an offering of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which operates online as well as through an offline network of agents and bank branches. You can pay for utility services like electricity, water, gas, telecom and Direct-to-Home (DTH), amongst others. There are plans to incorporate insurance payments, mutual funds, school fees, municipal taxes etc. as well in the future.


Direct debit from your bank account or credit card: Many banks allow you to set up standing instructions for the common payments. You can also set upper limits for automatic debits, so - as an example - Rs 25,000 isn't suddenly deducted for your home electricity bill. It is convenient as well as easy to add / remove billers on the netbanking page / credit card portal. Some credit cards also offer benefits when you register a biller with them.


Via apps & mobile wallets like Amazon, Freecharge, PayTM, BHIM etc.: In this age of smartphones, there are countless apps to pay your bills. Apps like Amazon and PayTM are multi-purpose; some are aggressive in offers and cashbacks, making them a popular choice for many (thanks to Venture Capitalists who will blindly fund anything & everything).


Company's own website: There is always the product / service website you can go to for payments. These OEM websites will employ payment gateways on their own, but they will not auto debit or have aggressive offers like some of the other options.


Offline methods like cheque drop, cash deposit, etc.: Only for oldschool people with a lot of time on their hands = you can still pay all your bills offline by visiting the local branch / office. Banks like SBI also collect taxes and do mobile payments. I remember a car loan we had taken which needed to be paid via cheque at the local branch!!

[GTO]

Voted for the 2nd option = Direct debit from my bank account.

Have added all the payees & find this to be the most convenient option. In fact, I find it cumbersome when a provider cannot be added to my bank's bill payment system. Example, MCGM Mumbai (water bills for my properties) are still terribly oldschool and not there on my bank's list of billers. I have to go to MCGM's old, often broken website. Ditto for property tax.

If this article is to be believed, 80% are still paid via cash in India . What a colossal waste of time.

[libranof1987]

A complete mix of everything.

My credit card offers some benefit on setting up standing instructions for Internet and Mobile bills; so those payments happen automatically.

It does so for Electricity as well but the payment date is several days post bill generation but MSEDCL offers a discount on payment within a few days so I pay that manually. Use PayTM/Amazon Pay for this and MNGL (Gas) payment.

I used PayTM for almost everything until some months back but offers there have dried up so load up Amazon Pay instead, since HDFC offers 10x reward points for a specific amount each month.

I use BHIM only when the payment gateway has a charge for credit cards.

[Shreyas_H]

For me it's a no-brainer. I have all my bills linked as a direct payment through my credit cards.

Setting up standard instructions is easy, I get reminders and notifications about the amount to be deducted a few days before the payment (so I can check if there is any issue) and credit cards give additional reward points for setting up bill payments.

From my cash flow perspective, the actual debit from my bank account is much later, thanks to credit cycles of the cards.

[Chetan_Rao]

I have standing instructions for recurring payments (SIPs and such) on my bank account, and use a credit card for everything else. I also like to pay the service provider direct (through their official website/app) and avoid paying through third-party channels that add extra layers and often cause delays.

I value the peace of mind and the ability to dispute transactions that my bank provides, far more than a few percent discount the likes of UPI and e-wallets offer. The absolute nightmare that can be resolving a disputed UPI transaction keeps me away from handing it any serious amounts.

[Gannu_1]

I use Amazon's app to pay my utility bills - landline (for fiber internet), postpaid mobile connection and electricity bill. Convenient, fetches the monthly bill itself and I get cashback and other offers since I pay by Amazon's ICICI credit card.







Since I stay alone, a gas cylinder nearly lasts a year so the subscription ends if I don't get a replacement within a year. I rely on my maid to get a replacement thus. I can see all the providers in Amazon's app.

How things have changed! I recall going to BSNL's office to pay the internet bills during the 56 kbps era.

[Jaguar]

Voted for Others - Amazon Pay.

Used to use Visa Bill Pay, later switched to Citibank CC bill pay system before moving to Amazon Pay. The UI/App is very user friendly and there is no cumbersome process of adding a new biller. When you make the first payment, the biller automatically gets saved and you are done. You also get timely reminders before the due dates. And, you still get the credit card reward points when loading money to Amazon wallet.

These days, I use Amazon Pay almost exclusively. Even when using apps like Uber or Swiggy, my preference is to pay via Amazon Pay whenever the option is available. This way, my CC details are not shared with random service providers.

[bharatbits]

I am quite fed up with paying all these cooking gas bills, internet bills, electricity bills, milk bills, telephone bills every month that i just started ignoring them and began paying once every 6 months once the bill adds upto a sizable amount. Ofcourse there's a late fee but that's a small amount to pay for the convenience i feel. I am not going to runaway without paying the bills either.

Cooking gas - MGL - paying once every 6 months
Electricity - BEST -paying once every 6 months
Internet - ION Broadband - got a 6 month (+1 month free) package. Would have got a yearly plan as well but i may be moving my residence.
Milk - Loaded up Supr Daily Wallet well in advance and milk deliveries happen without a hassle without bothering every month.
Telephone - Recharged Jio with yearly plans on all mobiles of house so don't have to bother till a year atleast.

Prefer Internet Banking for the above as i don't have to fetch my cards to see the number. I don't like saving my cards on any platform or auto submitting OTPs either.

Avoiding paying the maid too on a monthly basis until she asks for it. Paid for 6 months at once few days ago along with a generous addition for not inconveniencing me every month. She is also comfortable with it and has no issues.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by bharatbits

I am quite fed up with paying all these cooking gas bills, internet bills, electricity bills, milk bills, telephone bills every month that i just started ignoring them and began paying once every 6 months once the bill adds upto a sizable amount. Ofcourse there's a late fee but that's a small amount to pay for the convenience i feel. I am not going to runaway without paying the bills either.

Avoiding paying the maid too on a monthly basis until she asks for it. Paid for 6 months at once few days ago along with a generous addition for not inconveniencing me every month. She is also comfortable with it and has no issues.

I think this is not the right thing to do. Timely payment of bills is something which brings lot of financial discipline to your life. I am uncomfortable even to pay 1Re as late payment. Are you OK if some one pay you the salary the same way.

I pay all my bills through APPs or direct deduction from my bank account through UPI.

[ruzbehxyz]

Voted for no.2.

I have set up all bills through my credit card. This makes life easy.
In today's world we have access to this technology, so we must use it. No matter what mode you use, it should be done online to save time and effort.
But I still see senior citizens and occasional old school people standing in ques to pay their utility bills. This is mainly because they are afraid of online frauds or don't have help for someone to guide them. I feel sorry for them.

[nairrk]

Mod Note : Please do NOT post messages that add little or no informational value to the thread. We need your co-operation to maintain the quality of this forum. We advise you to read the Forum Rules before proceeding any further. Request to post ONLY when you have something substantial to add to a discussion.

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by bharatbits

I am quite fed up with paying all these cooking gas bills, internet bills, electricity bills, milk bills, telephone bills every month that i just started ignoring them and began paying once every 6 months once the bill adds upto a sizable amount. Ofcourse there's a late fee but that's a small amount to pay for the convenience i feel. I am not going to runaway without paying the bills either.

Avoiding paying the maid too on a monthly basis until she asks for it. Paid for 6 months at once few days ago along with a generous addition for not inconveniencing me every month. She is also comfortable with it and has no issues.

Don't you get bombarded with calls to pay the dues? Not sure how it works in your place, in Bangalore and Kerala however, your electricity gets disconnected if you don't pay on time.

Not paying the maid on time is atrocious.

Originally Posted by ruzbehxyz

But I still see senior citizens and occasional old school people standing in ques to pay their utility bills. This is mainly because they are afraid of online frauds or don't have help for someone to guide them. I feel sorry for them.

Understand senior citizens doing that, but I see even young techies wary of using credit card/online banking and wasting their time queueing up in banks.

[vb-saan]

Voted for option 2 - Direct-debit from your bank a/c or credit card

But in actual fact it is multiple options for me. Wherever possible I have done direct bank deduction, but in cases were I cannot do that from here, I go with the App or service-provider website. For e.g.; I help my parents to do their bill payments in India (especially with the current COVID-19 situation). Some payments are via App (e.g.; AirTel, BSNL) whereas some goes via the website (e.g.; Asianet TV/Broadband).

[kavensri]

I use Amazon app to pay most of my bills:
Electricity – Amazon Pay ICICI CC
Landline/Broadband – Either Amazon Pay UPI or Amazon Pay ICICI CC, depending on the offer
Bharath Gas - Either Amazon Pay UPI or Amazon Pay ICICI CC, depending on the offer
Life Insurance Premium - Amazon Pay ICICI CC
Mobile Recharge - Amazon Pay ICICI CC

The only bill that I am unable to pay through Amazon App is Hathway Cable bill, which I pay directly from their app.

[RedTerrano]

How do I pay my monthly bills?
With extreme sadness and a heavy heart

Jokes apart, my preferred mode of payment is BHIM. Voted for apps.



I embraced BHIM almost since the day it was available. Works smooth as silk and 100% Indian. Since then, I have managed to get my milkman, vegetable vendor, grocer, maid and security guy on board.
Now with the virus, we avoid hard currency like a plague (pun intended). If I am not mistaken, we have zero cash at home today. Initially I used to go for net banking but after BHIM I realised it is too much of a hassle. With BHIM all I need is a phone number or a QR code scan. Easy peasy.

On a related note, I was pulled over by the cops yesterday. I pointed out I was inside the car with my wife, showed him the masks and pointed out we will wear them even before opening the door. Nothing doing. Fined 500 (with proper receipt)
I paid the fine with BHIM as well.