Adding Digital Wallets and Walmart Bill Pay to Leave No Customer Behind

Case Study

The Opportunity

Raleigh, North Carolina is a city known for innovation. Part of the Research Triangle and home to numerous tech companies and enterprises, Raleigh is one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. And while the city’s population skews toward a younger, more digitally-savvy billing base, it is still home to many underbanked and cash-preferred customers.

City of Raleigh Water Utilities Department took this challenge head on, embarking on an ambitious plan to expand its payment options to ensure that none of its approximately 200,000 account holders was left behind. The main elements of this expansion involved the launch of new digital wallet options (PayPal, PayPal Credit and Venmo) and the ability for Raleigh Water customers to pay bills in local Walmart stores.

The Solution

To meet its goals, the City leveraged the best-in-class Paymentus electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) platform and its real-time integration with Raleigh’s Oracle billing system. Working in close partnership, the Raleigh-Paymentus team fast-tracked the implementation of PayPal, PayPal Credit and Venmo digital wallet payment methods.

The utility further expanded its payment options by offering residents a cash payment option with Walmart Bill Pay. Residents need only provide cashiers within Walmart customer service departments their account numbers. Residents can then pay their bills in cash, with all payments digitally tracked and reported in real time.

Upon project completion, Raleigh Water customers had 13 different ways to pay, receive notifications a bill is ready and view details about their water bill including traditional methods and digital offerings such as Google Pay and Apple Pay.

The solution also featured seamless integration with Agent Dashboard, allowing City of Raleigh Water Utilities Department internal staff to easily reconcile these new payments in real time, just as they would their standard payment types. The optimization of back office processes through single reconciliation and reporting gave Raleigh’s team a stress-free way to manage operations and track performance.

The Results

With many Raleigh residents already using digital wallets to receive paychecks, deposit tax refunds and send P2P payments, digital wallet bill payments are a natural extension of their day-to-day financial lives. This has been proven in the digital wallet growth experienced by City of Raleigh Water Utilities Department. 

I’m excited to see how quickly our residents have adopted these new payment methods. Our mission has always been to ensure that all of our residents have simple, convenient payment options at their disposal. We’re fulfilling this mission and then some. I’m proud of our team, our partnership with Paymentus and how we’re now able to meet any payment preference."

– Gregory Jenkins II, Assistant Director, Raleigh Water