Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank has seen a significant rise in the number of consumers who choose to pay their bills online. The number of bill payments made through its BillPay website rose above one million n 2006, an increase of 37 per cent over the previous year. The BillPay website was launched in 2000 and is widely used.
Graham Long, Head of Payment Services at Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank commented: ‘Our 2006 figures highlight the growing number of businesses choosing to enable their customers to make payments online, due to the convenience this channel provides. The recent addition of Credit Card acceptance and enhanced user security has broadened the payment options available to clients and increased their confidence in using this popular service.’
In other banking news, comparison site USwitch has commented on the banking reporting season following the profit announcement from HSBC Group. HSBC reported its highest profit to date at £12 billion. Nick White of Uswitch said: ‘As predicted, record profits totalling £40 billion have been reported by the banks over the past two weeks which is great news for the banking industry. However, these banks have also reported £13 billion of write offs in 2006, which equates to one third of the overall profits. This provides strong evidence as to why consumer debt in the UK is such a growing problem with one person falling victim to insolvency every minute of every working day.’
He added: ‘To put this write off into context, for every adult with a current account in the UK this equates to £326.973 per person compared to £1,000.72 profit. Going forward, we hope to see this figure reduced considerably by the end of 2007 and if banks introduce stricter lending criteria in the retail banking arena, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be.’
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