Driving Cost Savings and Greater Adoption with Walmart Bill Pay & Digital Wallets

The Opportunity

Metropolitan Utilities District (M.U.D.), the 5th largest public gas utility in the U.S., serves the water and natural gas needs of more than 600,000 residents in the metro area of Omaha, Nebraska.

As part of its business optimization strategy, M.U.D. opted to close many of its physical offices – which were prime locations for accepting cash payments. To offer its in-person and cash-preferred customers easy, convenient ways to pay their bills, the District took advantage of the Paymentus billing and payment solution and its holistic, comprehensive and inclusive payment offerings.

The Solution

Since 2015, Paymentus has helped M.U.D. expand its billing and payment capabilities to meet shifting business and customer needs. Leveraging this experience, the team collaborated to bring several new payment options to the M.U.D. billing and payment platform that would allow them to close physical offices and still accept critical in-person payments from customers.

Thanks to the industry-leading partnerships offered through the Paymentus Instant Payment Network® (IPN), the District was able to add Walmart Bill Pay, PayPal digitized cash options and Venmo – without the need for additional vendors.

Walmart Bill Pay enables M.U.D. customers to pay their utility bills at 13 different Walmart locations within the M.U.D. service area using cash, debit cards or Ucards^TM. The payments post immediately, giving customers peace of mind that their payments have been made.

PayPal digitized cash options allow customers to digitize cash at more than 90,000 participating retail locations nationwide. Customers simply show the cashier a barcode within the PayPal app, which the cashier then scans and adds the cash amount into the customer’s PayPal balance. Customers can then use their PayPal account to instantly pay their M.U.D. bill.

The Results

M.U.D. has seen tremendous growth in its new bill pay offerings. Walmart Bill Pay transactions experienced 600% growth in the first five months since the offering launched. Not only has this given M.U.D. customers an additional way to pay their bill in-person, it has also expanded M.U.D.’s collections footprint while reducing its cost to serve.

Digital wallets have also proven popular with the District’s customers. PayPal, Venmo and PayPal Credit transactions grew 35% in 2023. The adoption of digital wallets gives M.U.D. yet another cost-effective digital alternative to costly in-office, legacy cash and check payments – yet another way the District is expanding its capabilities while achieving cost savings. 

Lastly, the Paymentus billing and payment solution has driven the adoption of another budget-friendly capability: AutoPay. Scheduled automatic payments have achieved a 3X increase since 2018. This ensures more on-time payments for customers, less staff time spent on collections and greater satisfaction overall.