PAY
Achievements
The project started on May 2006 and is now drawing to a close. Below is a summary of the latest achievements of each partner .COMMUNAUTE D'AGGLOMERATION PERIGOURDINE
CAP managed, during the last month of 2007, to conduct a survey of 300 users of school transportation (the service chosen for the EU-PAY trial).
This survey proved that a majority of the population is in favour of paying their public invoice in a supermarket.
Therefore, CAP began discussions with AUCHAN (a French supermarket chain) to see how they can extend the process. At the same time CAP has started discussion with a French IT company that is interested in this new market.
PRATO
Prato tested services for use by citizens living in the urban areas of Prato and Pisa. More than 180,000 payments were made through different channels for the school service application, more than 45,000 fines were paid through EU-Pay services. In addition, more than 20,000 health care tickets, 65,000 local taxes dues and 20,000 permits for pedestrian area were paid using EU-Pay.
10 CONAD supermarkets (6 in Prato and 4 in Pisa) were equipped with EU-Pay services and, despite the specific payment service only being experimental and despite no large scale marketing campaigns for this service, about 1,300 payments were made through this channel.
The feed-back of the users was very positive, Very common answers from the citizens seems to be: ".. I'm queuing every week at a supermarket for my weekly shopping. Why do I have to wait in another office to pay my local authority dues if I can do it at a supermarket spending time in only one queue?..."
SAARBRUECKEN
Saarbrücken successfully tested two services in the EU-Pay framework, the payment of geographical data on demand (InfoGis) and the payment of parking fees with mobiles (MOPAS).
The users have been asked by questionnaire about their opinion regarding usability and advantages of the two systems. Both groups gave a positive feedback.
Finally the market research in Germany was finished and the result has been that there is a limited market for the platform because of strong competitors in the mobile payment sector and the fact that approximately 80% of German tax payers have authorized the City to collect the taxes by debit authorization.
SHEFFIELD
Sheffield successfully developed the EU-Pay system for the payment of Council Tax bills and Parking Fines. The system worked through the Sheffield Credit Union and was tested by 50 Sheffield users, using Smartcard authentication.
Users were able to pay Council bills using specially designed EU-Pay kiosks. Users were able to decide how much of the bill was paid and can pay by cash, preventing the exclusion of those without bank accounts. Initial feedback from users was positive, with ¾ of users stating they would use the system again. One user stated: ‘It is much more convenient to be able to pay my bills within my local community than have to trek to the central Credit Union. I wish all my bills could be paid this way!'
The Sheffield team will also be producing a demo of the system later this month to further disseminate the EU-Pay service.
VARNA
Accumulated experience in the course of the project has now the chance to become a serious incentive for innovations on the level of the local administration. This is mainly due to the fact that the local authorities are now seriously intrigued to investigate the opportunity for limited introduction of the principles demonstrated through the EU-Pay project in their routine daily work with the citizens regarding numerous tax and fees collection. In the course of the discussions made on local level both local administration representatives and Varna EU-Pay partners reached consent to proceed with intense investigations concerning mass payment practices at municipal level with the final goal of finding the most suitable of these for future electronic conversion. Work of these issues will continue in the following months and the Varna EU-Pay partners expect their positive results in the next year.
AXETEL
Axetel disseminated EU-Pay on the 11th of April 2008 at the event "Europe in dialog with its citizens", organized in Bucharest at Institutul Francez , Bulevardul Dacia. One of the main conclusions of the workshop was that young romanian people prefer to use electronic methods, including payments, in the exchange citizen-administration.
- EU Pay Submits eChallenges 2007 Paper
Published on: 2007/5/22
