E-billing and E-payments - 2002 Report
Summary: July 2002
Conclusion
The E-government Unit of the State Services Commission has recently updated previous research on centralised e-billing / e-payments. We conclude there is no case at this time for a centralised system for state agencies. Individual agencies are free to pursue this approach to handling billing and payment where they have a clear and supportable business. The EGU will commission further research into various legal aspects of these matters.
Discussion
In May 2002, NZIER was contracted to review earlier research which had concluded that there was no advantage to Government by being a prime mover in this field and that in fact Government should avoid being involved in experimental proliferation of direct billing alternatives.
The key points arising from the research are:
- There are significant legal issues to be addressed by agencies which choose to adopt e-billing/e-payments for their services when there is a fee charged for the service;
- The passage of the Electronic Transactions Bill through Parliament is an important prerequisite to the adoption of such systems by the general public at large;
- The authentication of the participants in any bulk approach to e-billing / e-payments will need to be addressed;
- The proportion of users of such electronic solutions tends very strongly towards business-oriented transactions as opposed to private or citizen-oriented transactions. The business user community generally has such systems already in place (e.g. lawyers/land agents dealing with LINZ).
The E-government Unit Advisory Board has reviewed the report and agreed that agencies should be advised that:
- there is no preference as to the adoption (or otherwise) of e-billing / e-payment.
- they pursue electronic approaches to handling billing and payment where they find there is a clear and supportable business case for their individual agency.
EGU will also pursue the issue of the legal situation for fees related to electronic transactions.
