QR codes finally have official NACHA bill payment guidelines

The long awaited regulations for paying electronic bills have now been issued.

The Council for Electronic Billing and Payment (CEBP) from the Electronic Payments Association has now issued their final guidelines for the inclusion and use of QR codes in consumer bill payments.

These guidelines were a collaborative effort between CEBP and the input of the industry.

The new guidelines provide a description of the user of QR codes in a number of different functions for consumer bill payments, such as viewing invoices, enrolling for electronic billing, making payments to a bill, or setting up online banking payees.

Following the standards for the use of QR codes that have been established through these guidelines is voluntary.

Participants can include both direct billers or aggregator/consolidator payments and billing models. The new standard includes a wide variety of suggested regulations to follow in terms of the size of the barcodes, the data that they should include, and the way that the data should be laid out when it has been represented by the black and white square, in addition to other important points.

The purpose of the NACHA guidelines for the use of the QR codes in mobile billing is to establish a single format that can be used on a paper bill and that consumers can then scan using a smartphone or tablet using a generic reader or scanner app. Therefore, companies issuing bills would be able to enable the encoding of the barcodes within a format that has been standardized for greater security and certainty among companies and their clients. It can also help to ensure that the overall consumer experience is more consistent.

According to the chair of the CEBP, as well as the senior vice president of Wells Fargo, Chris Huppert, “With the help of the industry, the CEBP has been able to develop a clear, implementable standard for the use of QR codes in consumer bill payment.” He also added that “It is our hope that these standards will help encourage QR code use for bill pay, and ultimately provide an easy option for check writers to view and pay bills electronically.”