Bilingual, co-branded app to help 7-Eleven’s underbanked convenience store customers.
7-Eleven has partnered with PayNearMe, a financial services technology company, to introduce the PayNearMe Bill Pay app, enabling U.S. consumers to pay over 17,000 national and local billers with cash using a convenient barcode scan at participating 7-Eleven stores.
The domestic bill payment service is the first in a line of affordable financial services that the company plans to offer cash-preferring U.S. consumers and extends the reach of PayNearMe’s existing cash merchant processing offering for businesses.
The PayNearMe Bill Pay app serves as a full-service bill payment center, allowing cash users to keep track of payment history, set reminders, and securely pay their bills in under 60 seconds with one trip to their local 7-Eleven store. Most of 7-Eleven’s nearly 8,000 U.S. stores are open 24/7, allowing users with even the tightest schedules to easily and conveniently stay on top of their bills.
The wide range of billers that are payable include cable companies, utilities providers and insurance companies, as well as PayNearMe’s existing merchants such as Greyhound bus, and Indego, the city of Philadelphia’s bike share program.
According to the FDIC, 28% of U.S. households have limited or no access to bank accounts. The financially underserved and others who simply prefer to use cash can use this app to pay for bills and services without missing work for trips to a payment office, standing in long lines, and/or filling out complicated forms for money orders.
“This PayNearMe Bill Pay app is just the beginning,” said Danny Shader, PayNearMe’s founder and CEO. “Cash users are largely neglected in today’s bank-based digital economy. By building a suite of easy-to-use financial services that are also easy for retailers to provide to their customers, we will make it possible for everyone to benefit from the convenience of digital transactions.”
With money transmitter licenses already secured in all 48 states where they are required, PayNearMe expects to add national and regional retailers to its payment location network in the coming months. Other financial services are expected to follow.
PayNearMe Bill Pay for Retailers
For retailers, the PayNearMe Bill Pay app offers a new way to provide additional value to customers, increase in-store traffic and attract new customers. The app’s cloud-based technology gives retailers the ability to implement PayNearMe with minimal change to their existing systems.
7-Eleven is the first retailer to capitalize on PayNearMe’s technology by partnering with PayNearMe to offer a co-branded app. Called 7-Eleven Bill Pay Operated by PayNearMe, the app features the same 17,000 national and regional billers as PayNearMe Bill Pay, but is marketed exclusively by 7-Eleven to its customers.
“7-Eleven Bill Pay app builds on 7-Eleven’s portfolio of products and services that are affordable and convenient for financially underserved customers.” said Raja Doddala, 7-Eleven’s vice president of innovation and omnichannel strategy. “This app is one in a series of innovations that will take 7-Eleven stores from being convenience stores to ‘convenient’ stores.”
Both the PayNearMe Bill Pay and 7-Eleven Bill Pay Operated by PayNearMe apps are available to download for free in the Google Play store or iTunes App Store.
A convenience fee applies, depending upon the biller and the size of the payment, but most of the time, it is approximately $1.99 per payment.
Most payments are posted to the account within 4 business days, though many billers post payments the next business day.
“There is a lot of buzz around the potential of digital payments, but you can’t push cash into a smartphone or a computer,” said Shader. “We are digitizing cash transactions to make it easier for consumers to pay, for billers to accept and for retail partners like 7-Eleven to process.”
