Tesco Lotus bill-payment service to be expanded at cut-rate Bt5

Customers of 35 state agencies and private firms can currently pay bills at Tesco Lotus for utilities, mobile phones and installing products.

The company is in talks with 10 companies about joining the service. Among them are Total Access Communication and True Move. Tesco Lotus already has Advanced Info Service and Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia among its partners.

The retail giant launched the bill-payment service four months ago in its 450 stores.

Tesco Lotus chairman Sunthorn Arunanondchai said the branches' combined traffic of 30 million customers per month provided a good opportunity to expand the service.

The company has invested a huge budget to improve its IT system for the service, which charges a promotional rate of Bt5 per bill, compared to the market average of Bt10 to Bt20. The promotional rate has been extended until March 31 next year.

The bill-payment market is worth Bt4.5 billion to Bt5 billion. 7-Eleven is the market leader, followed by Pay at Post of Thailand Post and Pay Point of Family Mart.

Tesco Lotus on Monday signed a deal with the Government Housing Bank to allow the bank's customers to pay mortgage instalments at the superstore.

Ek-Chai's retail service manager Sasina Panyasen said the company did not want to gain huge revenue from bill payment.

In a separate matter, Sunthorn said that while customer traffic at Tesco Lotus has not decreased, purchase volume has dropped due to the slowing economy. Even so, the company will maintain its plan to expand by 10 stores a year, he added.