VECO urges clients to pay bills online and via TPAs

CEBU, Philippines — The Visayan Electric Company (VECO) will close its SM City Cebu office next week, September 25, as the company will no longer directly engage in accepting bills payment services.

VECO chief operating officer Anton Perdices urged its 416,000 customers in its franchise area in Metro Cebu to pay their bills to its over 500 Third-Party-Agents (TPAs).          

Perdices said with the advent of technology, bills payment can be done with ease through neighborhood partners like M. Lhuillier, Cebuana Lhuillier, and all 7-Eleven outlets, among others. VECO is also boosting its online payment platform in partnership with banks.

"There should be no reason why people should wait for 30 minutes [or more] to pay their bills," explained Perdices.

While VECO is doing away with the bills payment service, it is however boosting presence of service centers in high-traffic areas.

Yesterday, VECO opened its fourth service center at the J Centre Mall in Mandaue City, to add to the existing outlets located in Banawa, Talisay, SM Consolacion.

Also this month, the Talamban service center will be opened to be followed by the opening of a similar facility in Liloan next year.

The VECO service center outlets will accept transactions such as re-connection, new applications, complaints, account updates, bills deposits, among others.

Aside from its move to fully give its bills payment service to collecting partners, VECO has also been urging consumers to pay their bills online.

In an earlier interview with VECO president Jaime Jose Y. Aboitiz, he said that VECO's enrollment to ATM consortia, like Bancnet, Megalink, Expressnet, is to prepare for the shift of payment culture in the Philippines in the next few years.

While VECO bills can already be paid online through these networks, Aboitiz said Cebuano electric consumers can now start practicing online transactions, like in developed countries.

Although the 416 thousand consumers are still largely paying their bills via physical transaction either in the VECO-owned payment outlet in SM City Cebu, Consolacion and Talisay or accredited TPAs, Aboitiz is confident that online payment highway will eventually be explored by Cebuano electric consumers. (FREEMAN)