CBA upgrades bill payment features
Commonwealth Bank has introduced several changes to its CommBank app and NetBank services to improve customers' bill payment options.Customers can arrange to have their bills sent directly to the app or NetBank, rather than by email or post. They can view those bills in an upcoming payments calendar and they can choose to have bills paid automatically when they fall due.Customers with an Apple iPhone 5 or a later model can use the phone's camera to take a photo of the bill. Optical character recognition technology will fill in the Bpay account numbers, amount due and due date fields. Customers no longer have to add the Bpay biller code and customer reference numbers.According to a CBA media release, Australians could do with some help paying their bills. The bank commissioned a survey, which found that one third of people paid a bill late in the past 12 months.Australians spent an estimated A$286 million on late payment fees last year due to "bill payment mismanagement". The bills that most often paid late are utility accounts.