Vipps offers deferred payment of bills

Vipps fraudVipps is the most common payment service in Norway. Photo: Vipps.

As the debate over Norwegians’ growing consumer debt rages on, Vipps launched a new offer for deferred payment of bills. The company believes the solution they will now offer will actually help people not take out consumer loans.

Vipps, the payment app, will now offer users the option to  postpone the payment of bills by up to 30 days, for a flat fee, reports E24. 

The company says that they have used user data to create a solution that should be easy to keep track of.

With this, Vipps is expanding into yet another area that can give the company extra revenue.

Vipps’ original ‘friend payment’ service is free of charge in most cases and it does not provide significant revenue. Therefore, the company has worked intensively to establish other sources of income. This includes, among other things, invoice payment, payment in online stores and soon, a large investment in payment in store through QR codes at checkout.

Maximum limits
“We believe that the opportunity to postpone a bill in Vipps is helpful for those with a temporary need for it, especially since the user gets to cover the amount the bill is on but no more. It is not desirable for Norwegians to have too much credit,” said communications director Hanne Kjærnes in Vipps.

With the new service, customers will be able to defer payments up to a total of 10,000 kroner at any time, either divided into one or more bills.

“It can be useful to pay unforeseen costs such as dental bills or damage to the car, which you may not extra cash to pay for right away,” explained Kjærnes.

The cost to the customer is a fee in kroner and not a percentage interest rate, which Vipps believes is easier for people to relate to. There are three different rates, and it is only if you are late on the deferred payment that interest rates will start to run. You receive a reminder if you have not paid within 15 days of the deferred payment.

“The deferred payment will remain with the other invoices in Vipps, making it easy to keep track of the accounts,” said Kjærnes.

Initially, the service is gradually rolled out to Vipps users on Apple’s iOS operating system. The Android version is due next year.

Sparebanken 1’s credit card division is responsible for the credit itself while Vipps acts as an agent. You do not have to be a customer of Sparebanken 1 to take advantage of the offer and Vipps states that they are working to get more banks on the service gradually.

© VG / #Norway Today

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