Invoice collection and information services intended to subscribers are well known as resource-consuming, and utility companies must permanently invest in agencies and teller personnel to comply with subscribers expectations.

HPS took grasp of these specific constraints in order to develop a tailored solution that allow utility companies to stabilize, and further reduce their costs in information and payment tellers, while ensuring them a strong presence anywhere and anytime.

HPS' PowerCARD-Utilities solution takes advantage of several electronic and interactive channels that are both familiar and widespread in order to provide a multi-channel self-service with a high added value, at a low investment cost and almost permanent availability.

The standard PowerCARD-Utilities package is based on the PowerCARD e-Payment server and includes pending invoices request, real-time consumption request, invoice payment and advance deposit. The solution optionally implements the loyalty product PowerCARD-Loyalty.

The PowerCARD e-Payment server is build to acquire any electronic payment transaction from any third-party payment channel, like Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) or mobile phones, and any private channel, like point of sales terminals (POS) and the Internet.

Thanks to its open architecture and the supported communication protocols, HPS' solution easily plugs with new payment channels and new features.

PowerCARD-Utilities solution involves the utility company information system and its PowerCARD e-Payment server, as well as the acquiring partner's information system in the case of third-party payment channels (ATM or mobile phones).

The offered services that are pending invoices request, real-time consumption request, invoice payment and advance deposit, can be be run either online or online and offline.

Online mode

In this mode, the information is processed and exchanged in real time between the different systems. That ensures the real-time availability of the subscriber data and information.

The online mode needs however a slightly longer processing time since PowerCARD e-Payment server must always communicate with the utility company information system in order to exchange the data related to the selected service.

Mixed mode (online / offline)

In this mode, most information is exchanged offline on a regular basis between PowerCARD e-Payment server and the utility company information system. It can be divided in three logical phases:

	Data loading in PowerCARD e-Payment server (offline),
	Service usage on the different payment channels (online),
	End-of-day processing (offline).

The mixed mode presents the avantage to reduce exchanges between PowerCARD e-Payment server and the utility company information system. Compared to the online mode, response times are smaller since information requests, invoice payments and cash deposit rely on the data stored in PowerCARD database; that means however not to have real-time information whatever the used service.

The end of day consists in sending the operation file, all services included, to the utility company information system.

Financial Sanction

The two financial services that are invoice payment and cash deposit are paid in different ways depending on the used payment channel. It can be:

	A cash deposit or a fund transfer on ATMs,
	A cash, check, or card payment at affiliated merchants’,
	A fund transfer on Internet,
	A debit posted on the prepaid number credit or the postpaid number bill for mobile phones.

Service fee

The utility company can post specific fees related to each service usage. These fees may depend on the service as well as the payment channel used.

Fee posting for the two financial services can be coupled to the posting of the transaction amount itself. For the other services that are pending invoices request and real-time invoice request, fee posting can be done before performing the service.