“Contactless” Payment Kiosk Review
Not the unit we write up in the post for sure but the Bill Payment kiosk by Olea Kiosks is an example of good bill pay kiosk design. Available with all forms of accessibility options. https://www.olea.com
Posted on Alabama Power Introduces CityBase Contactless Payment Kiosks
Editor Review: New utility bill payment kiosk deployment announced for Alabama. It’s not the first time for CityBase. We note the 2016 PR on Omaha Child Support Payment Kiosks.
- A major point promoted by CityBase is ADA Accessibility. Going into state and local markets that would be incumbent upon them. Odds are pretty good the DOJ might adopt a different point of view going forward. Given that though just looking at the kiosks (renderings) we can see no evidence of accommodation either physical or interface. See picture down below
- PCI “compliant” security is noted for credit card and check (we think they meant Check21) but again, no details of. The swipe credit card reader reminds us of the old Magtek 2-track magstripe from 10 years ago. No spec.
- The use of “Contactless” in the title is puzzling. It supports cash, credit card (swipe) and cash. It does have a scanner for reading barcodes off utility bills but that hardly constitutes contactless transactions.
- Unlike companies like Datacapsystems which has an extensive listing of all the supported payment processors, there is nothing about the backend integrations available (Harris e.g.) or payment processors.
- Business – GTY did announce an earlier deployment with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. GTY is publicly traded and it currently trades at under $4/share.
Excerpt:
CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CityBase, a leading provider of government and utility technology, today announced a partnership with Alabama Power to enable customers in Montgomery and Mobile, AL, to pay electricity and water bills in person at a secure, self-service kiosk. New one-stop kiosk technology enables the utilities to share devices for their payment applications while maintaining independent operations. CityBase is a business unit of GTY Technology Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: GTYH) (“GTY”), a leading provider of SaaS/Cloud solutions for the public sector.
GTY’s @CityBaseInc partners with @alabamapower to enable in-person payments at secure, self-service kiosks
Citybase Bill Payment KIosk image from website
Alabama Power has worked in partnership with CityBase to deploy 80 kiosks in 36 locations state-wide. In 2019, the utilities provider made payments available for Montgomery Water Works on the six kiosks in its local business office. In the year following deployment of the kiosks, they were responsible for more than 30% of Montgomery Water Works’ total monthly in-person transactions.
Building on the success of that program, in October 2020 the utility provider added Mobile Area Water & Sewer System (MAWSS) payment applications to 11 kiosks in four payment centers that span the greater Mobile metro area. One-stop payment kiosks from CityBase enable government agencies and utility providers to provide shared customers the ability to pay bills for multiple utilities in a single visit, creating efficiencies for customers on the go.