CENTRAL BANK WORKING ON PLAN TO SET UP A BILL CONSOLIDATOR

       The Bank of Thailand (BOT) plans to set up a single bill consolidator that would pool public utilities billings for consumers in a bid to reduce operational cost in the economy.
       The electronic bill project would enable consumers to check their bills via the bill consolidator or other counter services instead of dealing with many bills from many operators via snail mails.
       The consumer would be encouraged to use electronic oayment or they could use other traditional payment, according to their preference.
       Toschanok Leelawankulsiri, BOT's division executive of Payment Systems Policy and Strategy Division, said the project would help save the snail mail cost for the business sector and save time for consumers.
       "We should have the single bill consolidator but some companies said they have already invested in their own system," she said.
       The bill consolidator would gather all of the bills issued. A consumer would be able to surf the Net to read the bill consolidator.
       Counter services like post office's Pay-at-post or 7-Elecen's counter service could provide the bill consoldator service, so consumers could check and pay their bills.
       "The consumers might get an sms from a bill collector about how much they have to pay on various accounts," said Toschanok.
       The central bank, commercial banks and related companies, however, will have to work hard on the project.
       For example, the bill consolidator shoudl adopt online or offline system as it would deal with the partners.
       Many countries, such as the United States, Britain, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, have the bill consolifators. Some countries have a single consolidator while others have a few.
       Meanwhile, the BOT wants to encourage credit-card holders to use cards issued by local commercial banks to help reduce transaction cost and promote shops to take the credit cards.
       The credit-card transactions incurred by international card issuers currently need the overseas clearing system, resulting in the high operation cost. As a result, shops have to pay merchandise rate of 2-3 per cent for the card-issuers unnecessarily.
       Tischanok said the country could establish an internal clearing system via any agency, such as National ITMX, in a bid to reduce the cost.