Can you pay your household bills with bitcoin ?

[jim618]

I was just doing my monthly accounts with an old school bank account and moving money around with PayPal etc.

Examining it with a bitcoin eye, the only thing I could not do with bitcoin is pay my household bills.
If I could replace my standing orders and direct debits with a bitcoin equivalent I would hardly need a bank account.
(Well I would need a bit of fiat to pay for my groceries and petrol).

Are there any services - existing or being worked on - that ?:

1) Take regular bitcoin payments
2) Convert to fiat - say buying directly on an exchange at the spot rate.
3) Pay domestic bills in a 'direct debit' fashion.
4) Perhaps with an API so that the user can pull their most recent bills into a suitable client.

There is no chargeback risk as they are accepting bitcoin.
I would be happy to pay a percent or 2 for the service.

The user has a "float risk" - the amount of bitcoin/ fiat in the service from when you put the bitcoin in and the fiat comes out but that would a short period of time. ( a few hours?).

I am in Europe - SEPA payment area - but let's include USD too.

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[slothbag]

Spendbitcoins.com offers a bill paying service using the Australian BPAY system.. With that you can pay pretty much any bill you have, rent, energy, rates even taxes.

Probably doesn't help you out in Europe though.

[Elwar]

I would think that a bill pay service would be fairly easy to set up and do pretty well making a few % per transaction.

You just set up a web page that accepts BTC, get a form they fill out of the amount, name, address and account number of where they want the check to go. Then just print out the checks and mail them out every day.

Sounds like something bit-pay could do fairly easily if they wanted the extra load.

[Tuxavant]

I now work for a company that resells utility services(gas, electricity, phone). I am actively engaging the executives within this organization and sharing my excitement and knowledge of Bitcoin. Some day, soon, someone is going to make this happen and it will be BIG Fing news.

[jim618]

@Tuxavant - excellent !

Each service that we create just makes bitcoin easier and easier to use.

[Sukrim]

Could be done on top of Bit-Pay, but they already charge ~5% for EUR. Add your own margin on top of that and soon you pay a premium close to 10% just for a simple SEPA transaction.

Also I'm not 100% sure how the legal situation is in that regard. In the end it goes like this for the company: "Someone gives me play money and a filled out SEPA form, and as soon as I received 'enough' of the play money I send forward the Euros from that SEPA transaction on my own.". Might be completely simple and easy to do, or it might be a heavily regulated field, with AML laws, licenses and whatnot - I personally have no idea.

[Stardust]

I am waiting for the day when I will be able to pay household bills directly with bitcoins.

[Stephen Gornick]

Are there any services - existing or being worked on - that ?:

1) Take regular bitcoin payments
2) Convert to fiat - say buying directly on an exchange at the spot rate.
3) Pay domestic bills in a 'direct debit' fashion.
4) Perhaps with an API so that the user can pull their most recent bills into a suitable client.

It is starting to happen with intermediaries that will accept bitcoins and then will pay your bill for you using fiat.  I believe that is what SpendBitcoins is doing with BPAY in Australia.(you provide Biller Code and Customer Reference Number at checkout).

It might be quite some time before we see actual utilities start to accept bitcoin for payment.  This is partly the result of regulation and bureaucracy -- some don't even accept a payment card for bill payment yet, for example.

There was a service operating for a short while, BitcoinAgents.com that I had high hopes for.   It was intended as a buying agent service but it has a use case that is in demand.  The service was a directory of people in specific geographic area who offer to do work for a fee (paid in Bitcoins, of course).  These workers are matched with people willing to pay for tasks to be performed -- such as buying an item online as a domestic purchase and then shipping it out internationally.   I saw another use for this type of service in being able to send bitcoins and have that person make a utility payment for you (which is often something possible when using cash at many convenient locations).

Of course, that is an expensive method and doesn't scale but it would give more options for ways that bitcoins can be used.

And there's now in the U.S. mobile wireless prepaid phone ecodes available for purchase from BTCBuy.info:
 - http://btcbuy.info/CallingCards.cshtml

 - AT&T GoPhone
 - Cricket PAYgo
 - Page Plus Cellular
 - Simple Mobile
 - T-Mobile
 - Virgin Mobile

I am in Europe - SEPA payment area

Don't hesitate to inquire:

By the way, important note here: we have access to a wide variety of calling cards and wireless refills, both in USA and internationally. If you are interested in purchasing PINs or direct refills for some specific carrier, please send me a message, I could get those handled on priority basis

 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78050.msg873109#msg873109


What will probably happen is BPAY or maybe BTCBuy will end up getting interviewed for a story in a business rag and the magic words:
 - "no chargebacks",
 - "zero fees" (to the payment recipient)
 and
 - "same-day settlement"
will be used.

And then all of a sudden the gears will start churning with the readers ... like "hey, we could really use that!"

And then when there is competition, one merchant will start giving a discount for Bitcoin payments versus payment cards, and once that happens it is all over... victory will be Bitcoin's!

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I will be able to accept BTC for airtime within a few weeks with 100 Countries, 320 Mobile Operators

[adamstgBit]

I will be able to accept BTC for airtime within a few weeks with 100 Countries, 320 Mobile Operators

dose this mean i could pay my Koodo cell phone bill with bitcoin?

will their be fees for using this service?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I will be able to accept BTC for airtime within a few weeks with 100 Countries, 320 Mobile Operators

dose this mean i could pay my Koodo cell phone bill with bitcoin?

will their be fees for using this service?

In Canada it will be: Bell Mobility, Chatr Wireless, FIDO, MTS, Rogers Wireless, SaskTel, Solo Mobile, Telus, Virgin Mobile, and Wind.

I'll try and get Koodo as well

[unclescrooge]

I will be able to accept BTC for airtime within a few weeks with 100 Countries, 320 Mobile Operators

dose this mean i could pay my Koodo cell phone bill with bitcoin?

will their be fees for using this service?

In Canada it will be: Bell Mobility, Chatr Wireless, FIDO, MTS, Rogers Wireless, SaskTel, Solo Mobile, Telus, Virgin Mobile, and Wind.

I'll try and get Koodo as well

Dude, you're doing a wonderful job!

[check_status]

@Yankee (BitInstant)
What about check cashing establishments? They often offer bill pay services for various major companies including electric & gas, ISP, Telco's and some minor services.
If Bitcoin could get into those, might even become a common exchange along with bill paying.

[bitlizard]

I'm in canada with rogers wireless, gf is on fido. If i can pay our phones bills using btc i will do it exclusively (about $160/month) provided there are no costly fees.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

@Yankee (BitInstant)
What about check cashing establishments? They often offer bill pay services for various major companies including electric & gas, ISP, Telco's and some minor services.
If Bitcoin could get into those, might even become a common exchange along with bill paying.

One step at a time.

Regarding check cashing places, look out for an announcment in a week or so about that

I'm in canada with rogers wireless, gf is on fido. If i can pay our phones bills using btc i will do it exclusively (about $160/month) provided there are no costly fees.

I just forwarded that to an exec at Rogers 

[adamstgBit]

do you know what BTC exchange rate they will use?

Virtex
MtGox CAD
or MtGox USD?


or is the deal we send BitInstant bitcoin and BitInstant pays the bill and holds the coins  

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

do you know what BTC exchange rate they will use?

Virtex
MtGox CAD
or MtGox USD?

We will accept the Vouchers from the 6 Exchanges we're integrated with, so if BTC is cheaper on one exchange you can use that one.

As per BTC, it'll be MtGox rate at first, but eventually the lowest rate across all exchanges

[Portnoy]

I'm in canada with rogers wireless, gf is on fido. If i can pay our phones bills using btc i will do it exclusively (about $160/month) provided there are no costly fees.

I just forwarded that to an exec at Rogers 

I'm in Canada with Telus; internet and cellphone. If i can pay my bills using btc i will do it exclusively provided there are no costly fees.

[yodog]

can't you just use aurumxchange's withdraw2card service?

and dump cash onto your debit or credit card?

[check_status]

@yodog  Did you shorten your name?