SpareBank 1 Vippses paper invoice away

Sparebank 1, Invoice Paper VippsPaper invoices. Photo: Sparebank 1

SpareBank 1 Insurance Vippses the paper invoice away

SpareBank 1 Insurance (Forsikring) starts using Vipps Invoice and reduces paper invoices for personal insurance by 40 per cent immediately.

 

 40 per cent of our customers who pay their insurance using paper invoices are Vipps invoice users, and the potential is large. We annually send out more than 300,000 paper invoices to our private customers, says Head of Innovation in SpareBank 1 Insurance, Svein Skovly.

The measure is for now the last step in the digitalisation of insurance and will be a welcome change for the youngest policyholders. Most people still get the first invoice in their regular mailbox before they can arrange for electronic payment.

A paradox for the young

– It is a paradox that the first payment the youngest face to their insurance company is a paper invoice. That is backwards for those who are growing up with digital services and leaves the impression of an old fashioned industry.

– There has been little innovation regarding payment of bills, and users’ needs have not been at the centre of attention. The fact that more than 136 million invoices annually are issued on paper is a good example of this and something we are ambitious to change through offering payments through Vipps, says responsible for Vipps in SR 1 Insurance, Rune Garborg.

Wants to get rid of the paper invoice altogether

From being an App for payments among friends, Vipps now has more than 60,000 corporate customers and grows a lot in that market. Especially in e-commerce, Vipps now takes a larger share of the payments and was the fastest growing payment method in 2017. Providing payment of bills through the App has therefore been important in strengthening the offer for both personal users and businesses.

SpareBank 1 is the second largest co-owner in Vipps and it is therefore natural that they are involved in the development and use of the service.

– We work closely with both our owners and partners to develop the service further. That SpareBank1 now can reduce paper invoices by 40 per cent shows how important cooperation is to ensure future payment services, says Garborg.

SpareBank 1 Insurance is working to offer Vipps Invoice to everybody who receives paper invoices, regardless of the type of insurance. Vipps will be the means to get rid of the cumbersome and costly paper invoice for good.

– We think the transition from paper to Vipps Invoice results in more people paying their invoice on time, simply because it’s easy, and because it can be done with a tool people already use, says Skovly.

About Vipps (Wikipedia)

Vipps is a Norwegian mobile payment application designed for smart phones developed by Den Norske Bank (DNB). Vipps was released May 30th, 2015 and by reaching 1 million users on November 5th, 2015 – Vipps is Norway’s largest payment application.

Although Vipps is developed by DNB, it is an application open for customers from any Norwegian bank, and 40 per cent of the users are not DNB customers.
Vipps is an application that gives the user the possibility to make payments to a receivers telephone number instead of an account number.
The application is designed for smart phones (iOS, Android or Windows).

After downloading the Vipps App, there is a registration process where the user assigns a credit- or debit card (Visa/MasterCard),  personal and account information. After registration the user’s account information is connected to the mobile telephone number.

Vipps is protected by a user defined four digit identification code. For payments exceeding NOK 2,000 the application invokes BankID user identification. There are also security checks in the applications during registration and payments.

Users can add  an image to their profile which will be visible to others, and in addition to payments the application lets users chat with each other.

If a payment is made to a phone number not connected to Vipps, the receiver will receive a SMS instructing them to download the application. If they don’t the payment will be cancelled.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today