The rapid shift to digital payments hit much harder for Verizon, a large biller that relies on its nationwide chain of retail stores to collect payments from many of its customers.
The wireless carrier moved quickly to adapt the systems it used to accept payments in call centers to support walk-in customers. Verizon also forged ahead with real-time payment options — and it's part of Attie Muse's job to get more banks on board with such systems.
"We felt we had an opportunity to have an influence and provide feedback to banks and encourage broader participation" in Request for Pay (RfP), a system that lets consumers pay bills immediately or at a scheduled time, said Muse, director of payment strategy and operations for Verizon, which is based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.
Muse is one of American Banker's Most Influential Women in Payments for 2022.
Citigroup, Bank of New York Mellon, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Financial Services Group were among the first banks to support RfP for bills, enabling them to be paid in real time over The Clearing House's RTP rail. But that leaves dozens of large banks and thousands of small banks that don't offer requests for real-time payments.
Verizon was part of the original deployment of RfP through BNY Mellon and Citigroup, and there's a broader group of about two dozen banks that have pledged to offer RfP, plus thousands of other banks that could come on board as clients of the bank technology firms Fiserv and Jack Henry.
The last tranche of Verizon bills for the Citigroup pilot went out on March 1, and Verizon is now working with U.S. Bancorp, Bank of America and Wells Fargo on a limited pilot of RfP.
"We need to get bank ubiquity if this is going to take off," Muse said. Self-service real-time billing options are also under development, she said.
RfP can be a big help for consumers who may be struggling, and the technology is in line with other Verizon initiatives such as support for Keep America Connected, a pandemic program that allows people to defer invoices and balances to allow customers to retrain wireless service.
Muse was also involved in forging Verizon's strategy as its retail locations closed and then reopened during the pandemic. Like a lot of merchants, Verizon had to come up with a way to manage transactions at locations that had relied on a traditional point of sale, and had to do it fast.
"We had to strategize very quickly about how we would operate when we were able to open back up," Muse said. It was important to remove friction and create physical distance between the payment peripheral, Verizon employees and the customer, she said.
To this end, Verizon used an existing digital payment link that it had used in its customer care and telesales call centers.
"We knew that this would/could increase our chargebacks due to moving from a card-present to a card-not-present transaction, so we ensured that we invoked
"This made it very easy for customers to continue to do business with us," Muse said.
Muse's career began in Arkansas when she was 18 and joined Alltel, which Verizon acquired in 2009. A series of promotions led her to a management position in financial services, and eventually leadership of a payments operation team. When she became director of payments operations in November 2020, Verizon hired an external coach to meet and mentor Muse during her first three months in the role.
"While I had very little margin in my day to meet weekly with this mentor, it ended up being extremely productive and helpful in getting me to think in new and different ways and to have a neutral and external party to discuss issues and ideas with," Muse said.
