Property tax payments at Canada Post - PaySimply
In this fast-paced digital era sometimes it’s nice to get things done in person. Now, through PaySimply, municipalities can accept cash and debit card payments for property taxes and utility bills at any Canada Post outlet. Robert Radinov walks us through the choices you have to make your payments simple, secure, and fast.
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To learn more, visit paymentsource.ca/paysimplymuni
Show Notes for this Episode
MW Presents: Hey, thanks for tuning in. I’m Sean Meyer. And this is Municipal World Presents. This special podcast series is sponsored by our partners and vendors across the municipal sector. Its goal is to deliver a sharp insights and innovative approaches to help local governments. Thanks for joining us for this special episode of MW Presents sponsored by PaySimply by Payment Source. I’m Sean Meyer from Municipal World and our guest today is Robert Radinov. Rob is Director of Payment Services at Payment Source, and have worked with many Canadian FinTech and makers of PaySimply, an online tax and bill payment service. Rob has extensive product and market development experience in the payments industry.
I know that through PaySimply, municipalities can accept cash and debit card payments for property taxes and utility bills at any Canada Post outlet. So clear something up for me. I thought PaySimply was an online service, enabling people to facilitate in-person payments at a Canada Post.
Robert Radinov: Well, PaySimply.ca is certainly an online service. It exists on our overall PaySimply platform. And this platform can facilitate both online payments, so using a credit card, PayPal or E-transfer, but this platform facilitate in-person payments with cash and debit card in Canada. PaySimply has actually been facilitating in-person payments at Canada Post for the CRA for the past several years. So we’ve recently developed a capability to bring this same service to municipalities.
We have a partnership with Canada Post whereby we have an integration, a technical integration into their point of sale devices, basically their cash, and that facilitates financial account loading by cash and debit card. Canada Post locations, they’re typically closer in proximity, I believe to the majority of residents in many municipalities. And therefore, they’re more conveniently located to make in-person payments than say a municipal office, like a city hall, for example. So it’s a great way for municipalities to decrease their cheques that are being mailed in, decrease cash handling, and reduce lineups at municipal offices. And that’s of course, assuming they’re even still open nowadays.
MW Presents: That’s a good point. So can you walk us through how an in-person payment is available to Canada Post? How would that work with PaySimply? What fees are charged to the residents?
Robert Radinov: Sure. So when a resident is in PaySimply.ca, so our online service, after they’d be filling in their payment information – so that includes the account name, the account number, and the payment amount that they want to make – that resident would be presented with all of our payment options along with their associated fees. So we’ve got the credit card, E-transfer, PayPal, all of that stuff. So amongst those options, one of the options is actually to make an offline payment or an in-person payment, if you will, at Canada Post with cash and debit card. So rather than going through the whole transaction through PaySimply, what we do is we actually generate a QR code that the resident can print or have it emailed to them, or even text it to them.
And this QR code, it’s encrypted, and it’s got information on it that’s encrypted, specifically the name and the account number. The resident would then take this QR code to their local Canada Post outlet, present it to the Canada Post associate who would then scan the QR code and ask how much the resident would like to pay onto that account. So the tax resident would then fund the transaction with either cash or a debit card. And our fees are for any amount, payment amounts that are up to a $1,000 that’s $3.95 flat fee for an in-person payment with either cash or debit. If the payment amount is between $1,000 to $2,000, that’s a $5.95 flat fee. And if the payment amount is between $2,000 to $3,000, that’s a $7.95 flat fee.
So let me just give you an example of how this would work. It’s probably the simplest thing. So let’s say a resident wanted to make a payment on their property tax account, so pay their property tax bill in an amount of $1,500. So on PaySimply.ca, they would be charged the $1,500 plus the $5.95 flat fee for the Canada Post. So they would actually give the Canada Post associate a total of $1,505.95, but the full $1,500 will eventually be paid to the municipality.
MW Presents: Wow, very interesting. How does municipality’s bank receive the payment made by their resident at the Canada Post?
Robert Radinov: So once we received the funds – so we, I mean Payments Source, the makers of PaySimply – once we received the money from Canada Post that that resident has made. So I’ll use that example of $1,505.95. We send the funds, the $1,500, so the payment amount for that tax, to the same bank account that the municipality currently receives payments made through online banking. So let’s say, I bank at RBC, for instance, and I want to do an online bill payment. And you can see in that search bar the municipality that’s there. So we have the very same technology. So our transactions would be included in the daily reporting the municipality already receives from its bank. And if a municipality isn’t currently signed up to receive online bill payments with their bank, that’s not a problem at all. We can actually set up a separate, direct deposit arrangement with that municipality and provide them with reporting so that they can make sure that their reconciliation is accurate.
MW Presents: That’s very Interesting. You had mentioned QR codes earlier. Is there a way for municipalities to include a QR code on their property tax assessment letters, and bill statements, so the residents can just take those bills in with them to the Canada Post for their payment?
Robert Radinov: Yeah, for sure. The moment of truth is to have the payment methods available to make a payment right on the property tax bill. Or a water bill or utilities bill. So having a QR code, and we actually do this today with the Canada Revenue Agency and the City of Ottawa actually. And in fact, having a QR code on their bill statements drives far more in-person payments than when the QR code is generated online. It’s basically an awareness thing. And we have that functionality now for municipalities. So we would actually work with the municipality and their printer to create an individualized and encrypted QR code.
It would basically be our specs that we would give to the printing house, and that encrypted QR code would have the account name and the account number. And that would be printed on the bill statement that’s sent to each resident. And it would be individualized. This is all existing technology that exists at the printers, so it’s not a very difficult process at all. The resident would then simply go directly to Canada Post with their bill in hand and make their in-person payment that way. So they wouldn’t have even need to have gone through the PaySimply.ca website. They’re on the PaySimply platform. They just don’t know it.
MW Presents: So Rob, how can a municipality begin promoting in-person payments at Canada Post with PaySimply to the residents who just simply may not have knowledge that this is an option for them?
Robert Radinov: First, if anyone wants more information on the PaySimply service and how it could help their municipality, I’d encourage them to check out our landing page. It includes a detailed list of frequently asked questions. So that landing page is paymentsource.ca/paysimplymuni. And if they want to just reach out to us and talk to us directly, by all means, you can reach out to us by email and we’ll answer any questions that you have, or even set you up with PaySimply. As mentioned in the previous podcast, there’s no cost to the municipality and there’s no technical development effort. We can get you set up very, very quickly by giving you a direct payment link. So that email address to reach us is PaySimplyinfo@paymentsource.ca.
MW Presents:
That is some great information, Rob. I think that’s really helped out what people can get as an option for paying bills just quickly and simply. So I want to thank you for talking with us today.
Robert Radinov: Thanks for having me on.
To learn more, visit paymentsource.ca/paysimplymuni