How consumers are paying utility bills: 5 trends to watch — SkimNews
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- Owned digital channels have become the default for utility bill pay, with 60% of customers paying through their utility's own logged-in portal, while legacy methods have collapsed — only 21% use bank bill pay, 4% use mail, and 2% pay in person.
- Digital wallet adoption for bill payments has climbed to 42% of consumers, up from 37% in 2022, and 50% of customers say they'd consider using a digital wallet for utility payments in the future.
- PayPal still leads digital wallet usage at 61%, narrowly ahead of Apple Pay at 59% — a gap that has nearly closed as Apple Pay's bill-pay usage has nearly doubled since 2022.
- Awareness, not availability, is the adoption bottleneck: only 24% of utility customers know they can pay with a digital wallet, while 52% don't know either way, even as 59% of wallet users manage two or more wallets.
- Credit cards remain a steady channel, used by 42% of consumers for utility bills, with 66% of those users driven by rewards and cashback — the lever utilities have to grow this channel further.
- Flexible payment options like BNPL and installment plans are gaining traction, with 37% of utility customers valuing future flexibility and 40% expressing interest in or already using BNPL for bills.
Why it matters: Utilities that fail to modernize their payment experience risk revenue loss, higher call center costs, and brand erosion, per the source. The opportunity is concrete: with only 24% of customers aware they can pay utility bills via digital wallet despite 50% expressing future interest, even modest awareness campaigns could capture adoption that's already on the table.
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