Elexon Increases Direct Debit Collection by 40%

Automate critical payment cycle

ELEXON compares how much electricity generators and suppliers said they would produce or consume with actual volumes. It administers the Balancing and Settlement Code which is a legal framework that sets out strict guidelines for how any differences are calculated and funds transferred to settle these. Annual payments totaling £1.5 billion combined with daily payment volumes that average £5m but can reach as high as £30m require ELEXON to use robust and secure payments technology.

Darren Draper is the Finance Systems and Operations Manager. For nearly ten years, he has managed the transaction, payment and treasury processes for the utility company. He is a firm advocate for the PTX Payments and Business Solution Suite from Bottomline which is used by ELEXON as a centralised platform for Bacs payroll payments and Direct Debit collections.

Incredibly smooth implementation

ELEXON’s journey with Bottomline began when the company had too many demands for online banking to handle. It needed to be able to make indirect submissions to Bacs by sending payments via a bank or bureau. Following a recommendation by its bank, Draper arranged a solution demonstration from Bottomline.

The utility company underwent a seamless upgrade from its online banking platform for payments to the new system. The implementation was incredibly smooth, as Draper explains, “Bottomline experts were able to set up the different profiles, workflow rules and map the file types to get us into live testing in less than a day.” Following the initial implementation, ELEXON moved quickly to leverage PTX to its other business units so the security and efficiency benefits could be felt across the company.

He explains, “My evaluation showed that PTX matched our requirements closely. I was impressed with PTX’s flexibility and ease of use. As a cloud solution, PTX gives us operational agility to support our different business units. Additionally, we share many qualities with Bottomline such as being trusted, independent and reliable experts.”

ELEXON benefits from enhanced security through PTX’s Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Draper adds, “MFA is invaluable in helping us to meet General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) commitments. It ensures that access to PTX is highly secure and gives us an additional layer of authentication which is particularly valuable when making high-value payments.” MFA allows different business units to remotely access PTX to create, review and approve payments.

Fraud resistant payment processing

ELEXON’s internal finance system creates the relevant payment files and saves these to a network location. Draper says, “In a fraction of a second, PTX moves the file and uploads it for immediate processing. This is one of my favourite features as the automation eliminates any possibility of tampering with that payment file which is important for sensitive data such as salaries. PTX helps to minimise the risk of fraud and gives us complete confidence in the security and robustness of our payment lifecycle.”

ELEXON uses PTX to effectively manage the roles and responsibilities amongst the finance and operations team. The workflow ensures that two members of staff must be involved in creating a payment or changing an existing payment. This Segregation of Duty is a powerful fraud prevention control that limits opportunities for internal fraud.

PTX also verifies and validates payment files at the point of submission to Bacs. Using flexible automated rules, PTX checks for any first-time payments to accounts which can occur when new members of staff are paid for the first time.

Any potentially suspicious items are flagged for investigation. If there is a new bank account for payment, this information can be cross-checked against the master data on the finance system. Other PTX rules check for duplicate payment amounts or beneficiaries. Together, these rules mitigate the risk of fraud or error.

Draper says, “PTX is a completely flexible payment solution for our differing business needs and we have been able to progressively use the platform more over time. It offers a single, secure platform to administer all of our payment requirements with dual control of admin changes, approvals, a full audit trail and all of our Bacs submissions in one place.”

40% increase in Direct Debit collections