Online bill payments are good medium of removing the hassle of bill payments. You no longer have to stand in line, keep track of last dates or go to numerous places to pay different bills.

You can pay all your bills whether electricity, mobile or credit card online. Today one can choose between using an independent bill payment service provider like BillJunction.com and TimesOfMoney.com or you can even opt for the service through your bank.

Banks like HDFC, ICICI and Citi provide this service to their customers and bills can be paid through phone or net banking or via the ATM (automatic teller machine).

The basic advantage to online bill payments is convenience. Different portals have different features. The advantage of the independent bill service provider is that you can hold any bank account and still use the facility.

However, you have to be a HDFC Bank account holder to use their service, which is a requirement for the other banks providing the service as well.

TimesOfMoney.com allows you to schedule future payments, issue standing instructions for automatic payments, use multiple bank accounts and it also provides you with an online archive of your bills.

All the service providers offer archival facilities for at least the last 36 months' bills. They also offer either SMS or email reminders for the bills that need to be paid.

You can choose from a manual facility, which requires you to view the bill and pay or an automatic pay route, through which you allow the bank or service provider to directly debit your account once the bill is presented for payment.

Unless the amount is unnaturally high, you will not be notified about the deduction. TimesOfMoney charges Rs 199 for a period of 12 months and allows you to pay unlimited number of bills.

TimesOfMoney offers the service in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore while BillJunction offers the service in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Chandigarh. BillJunction charges a one-time registration fee of Rs 50 and has designed packages you can choose from.

For instance, under the Supremo plan you will be charged Rs 160 for 20 bills and the validity period is one year.

Similarly if you choose to use the SMS bill pay service provided by BillJunction then under the Supremo plan you will be charged Rs 160 for 12 bills in a period of one year.

Compared with this, Citibank charges a transaction fee of Rs 10 if you utilise the net banking facility and Rs 25 if you use the phonebanking facility.

However, the facility is free to all ICICI Bank credit card and account holders but they need to register as Internet banking customers. HDFC also charges Rs 10 per transaction.

The downsides

• In case you have a dispute with the biller, you have to handle that on your own. The bill payment service provider will not be able to resolve the problem. You cannot make delayed payments.
• There will be the usual charges for that. Also sometimes, there may be a delay in the bill service provider getting the bill simultaneously as you do, in which case there will be a delay in payment.