The Room Xchange Podcast

HelpPay: The New Era of Collaborative Bill Payments with Rowan Wilde

November 21, 2023 Neil Saligrama CEO Compare and Connect Season 3 Episode 30
The Room Xchange Podcast
HelpPay: The New Era of Collaborative Bill Payments with Rowan Wilde
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Ever wished there was a simpler way to manage and share expenses? Today, we're having an enlightening discussion with Rowan Wilde, co-founder of HelpPay. It's a social impact payments platform that's making it easier to shoulder bills together. Rowan shares how HelpPay lets you create a link for others to chip in on expenses and speaks candidly about the importance of customer trust and the challenges of providing support. And there's more - we're making an exciting announcement you won't want to miss!

Next, we're exploring the free app, HelpPay. Designed to take the fuss out of sharing bills with friends, family, and organisations, this app is a game-changer for anyone managing shared expenses. It's particularly beneficial for students and those in shared housing, making it easy to forward bills for payment and maintain a good credit history. The convenience and simplicity of HelpPay can't be overstated - it's revolutionising bill management and payment. 

We're also diving into the future of house-sharing and renting and how it's simplifying the renting process. The Room Xchange, Australia's first verified house-sharing platform, is revolutionising house-sharing by matching renters based on personality, values, and lifestyle. Plus, we're discussing the option to rent or offset rent, a game-changer for anyone looking to save time and money. Whether you're a homeowner new to the sharing economy, or a well-versed renter, this episode is packed with actionable tips and insights.

Last but not least, we're sharing our great news about the innovative partnership between The Room Xchange and HelpPay and how together, we're making bill paying easier.

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Speaker 1:

The really unique part about HelpPay is that when you provide four really small pieces of data just the BPay code and reference number how much is owed and when we turn that information into a link that you can then share just as easily as a YouTube link or a Spotify link on your phone, via SMS, email, whatever else and then anyone with that link you know your mom, your dad, your friends, your family, your brothers, your sisters can see exactly how much is owed when and help pay some or all of the bill, and everybody gets updated when a payment is made.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the RIM Exchange podcast helping you rent better. In this podcast, we're having conversations with industry leaders in the rental market, along with everyday renters, sharing fascinating stories, insights and tips to help you rent better. Hello and welcome to the RIM Exchange podcast. I'm Ludwina Dordovic and today I'm very excited to be talking to Rowan Wild. Rowan has worked for some of the biggest names in Energy, Health Insurance and Wealth Management and is now the co-founder of HelpPay, a social impact payments platform. We've got some exciting news that we'll be announcing at the end of the conversation that will benefit all of our listeners, so make sure you stick around to the end. I'm very excited about this conversation because there are some resources within this app that are going to be able to help a lot of people. Without further ado, Rowan, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1:

Ludwina, great to be here. Thank you for that very kind intro. I'm really excited about the conversation and what we get to tell the listeners about near the end of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you. Now look from one entrepreneurial founder to another. When there is a really fascinating concept that's developed, like what you have with HelpPay, I'm sure a bunch of people just go oh my gosh, it's just such a simple idea. I should have thought of that. It's often these really simple ideas that we just take for granted as we don't really think about it, because in the novel sales they're not that complex. They are to create but they're not in terms of the idea. We're going to go into that in a little while, but before we do, who is Rowan Wild and what's your backstory?

Speaker 1:

Who I am. That's a big question. I'm a pretty simple bloke. I'm a dad, I'm a husband.

Speaker 1:

My career has always been in digital and really, if I think about it, regardless of whether it's digital or offline activities, it's been about making things easier for customers really understanding what the customer is trying to achieve, where they are, when they're trying to achieve it, Then how to reduce those steps. Particularly, I've always worked in, or for a lot of my career I've worked in health insurance, energy, travel, life insurance, those sorts of things not particularly sexy industries, necessarily. I really enjoy them, but it's not like buying a pair of Nike's. When you get someone's attention, it's really about going okay, I know why you're here, I know what you're trying to achieve. You're probably not that enthused about getting it done. Let's just make that as easy as possible. Through that ease and really knowing what the customer is going to try and do next, my teams and I have built some fantastic solutions for customers along the way. I think just quickly, that idea of ease has to match benefit to more than one party. That's part of where and what we're trying to bring forward with HelpPay.

Speaker 2:

It's really fascinating because I'm actually going through a process at the moment of setting up more automations and sequencing to make the flow for our users and our customers a lot easier. It's actually an incredibly complex process because there's so many different nuances and different ways that customers actually use our platform. Of course, we have dual-sided marketplace, which means two customers, two different needs, two different ways of engaging with our platform as well, which doubles the whammy there. I really understand what you're saying. There's a lot of noise out there too, trying to continue grabbing the attention of people that might initially get in touch with you. It's always easy. Is that what you do, I think?

Speaker 1:

you're nailed it there. We have a free-sided marketplace in some instances and a two-sided marketplace for lack of a better word in other instances. I might just quickly talk about what HelpPay is. Helppay at its core is we heard from people who need to ask for help. Sometimes we talk to a lot of people who are more than happy to offer help or provide help to family members, friends, etc.

Speaker 1:

The third piece that was always missing was that company piece. What I would see inside the companies I was in and around is a lot of the same tried and true tactics. I'll send an SMS to my customers saying, hey, you can contact us if there's a problem. I know as a customer that I can do that. I don't want to tell you about my car accident or my ill health or something's going on at school with my kids. I don't. That's why I haven't been able to pay a bill or that sort of thing. At the same time, businesses have been really challenged to do anything other than say hey, we're here if you need us. At the same time, when we were talking to customers and helpers people who can help a lot of them said it's about trust. A lot of people who needed help said I just need one really easy way to rally my friends and family to my cause, be it paying a bill or my fridge just died. What can I do about it? The key part of this is for helpers.

Speaker 1:

We were sitting around a table several years ago now having a dinner party and I promise you it was a fun dinner party. But nearly everyone around the table had a story about themselves or someone they knew family member, friend who was going through a challenging time. It was around COVID time, right, and there were a couple of phrases that kept repeating around that table. From people around the table hearing the story oh my gosh, that's terrible. What can I do to help? And from other people around the table it was you should have told me I would have helped you.

Speaker 1:

That passion was real, but the ability to do something about it in a really meaningful way was very, very difficult. It was really easy to send $50 worth of alcohol around with a food delivery service or an alcohol delivery service, but it was nigh on impossible to sort of in that same sort of guaranteed outcome way, give $50 towards the electricity bill, which might keep the lights on front of 30 days, or give $50 to that same $50 that you would have spent on a roast chicken and a bowl of wine to your family or friend keep their mobile phone on for two months, because that keeps their data going and that helps them get a job or whatever the situation is. So we just really looked at sort of closing the loop aspect of helping each other, family, friends, the people we all turn to in those moments of crisis or need and going well, how can we make this really easy? How can we digitize bills? Surely we've digitized records. They've gone from vinyl to cassettes, to CDs, to DVDs, to links you share on your phone saying, hey, check this out. We've digitized video from beta cassettes and VHS cassettes to DVDs and now they're links on your phone. Surely there's something like this for bills and it didn't exist, so we created it.

Speaker 1:

And the really unique part about HelpPay is that when you provide four really small pieces of data just the BPay code and reference number, how much is owed and when we turn that information into a link that you can then share just as easily as a YouTube link or a Spotify link on your phone via SMS, email, whatever else, and then anyone with that link you know your mom, your dad, your friends, your family, your brothers, your sisters can see exactly how much is owed, when and help pay some or all of the bill, and everybody gets updated when a payment is made. So if your brother pays half of your $100 electricity bill, the landing page updates to see to show only $50 remaining. Your brother gets a receipt for his $50 that he paid. You receive a notification saying hey, someone's paid that $50 and you're able to pay anonymously or with your name if you like.

Speaker 1:

We really try to solve the truly big problem which, coming back to your original statement of trying to solve something simple, but it's actually incredibly complex is that we know we faced a lot of challenges. No one had ever done what we're trying to achieve before. Not only were we trying to make the paying of a bill or the details of a bill digital, but then you make them almost infinitely divisible, so one or a hundred people can pay that part of that bill and make it all trackable. So, yeah, I absolutely hear you that a really simple idea can be incredibly complex to execute, but when it works well, it's also incredibly rewarding. We're really proud of the tens of thousands of users that we have, and the businesses that have come on board to partner with us to make their bills transaction fee free. It's been a really rewarding journey over the last couple of years.

Speaker 2:

I like your analogy of we're able to make videos digital and music digital, why not bills? And often it's that asking the right question and going. Well, I call it playing what if? And it's like well, let's just break down a bunch of scenarios and see if this would actually play out and if it makes sense in enough different areas. Well then, it's just a matter of working out the tech, and most things these days can be worked out with tech. Okay, so let's talk about some scenarios then, because I think this is probably a good idea to get into.

Speaker 2:

But before we do that, I just want to clarify some steps, just from a raw listeners point of view, because I know that, as a founder, we talk about being so much that, but for somebody who hasn't heard it before, there might be some gaps. So, essentially, if there's a bill, say electricity bill, and someone's having problems paying it, once upon a time they'd come to you and ask you for money to help. Now, you don't really know if they're using that money towards the electricity bill. You hope they are, but you don't know. That's one kind of scenario that might be a challenge with that. The other is that perhaps a few people can contribute to help paying that bill and by having the digital version of the bill allows people to do that and there's a landing page attached to that bill. So people can then go there they can see how much is left. Because I've heard you say before that once the amount comes down, when it gets to the full amount paid, then nobody else can put money in it either. Is that correct?

Speaker 1:

That's absolutely spot on, ludwina. So let's say we're best friends or we're brother and sister, however you want to phrase it. I've lost my job and I'm really struggling to pay the electricity bill this month. I get the bill in the mail or my email. I grab the B-paid details, I whack in some information about the bill, due dates and owed amounts.

Speaker 1:

The help pay app which is free to use as a customer, by the way turns that bill into a link and payment page. I could send it to you mom, dad, other brothers, sisters, friends, colleague, a community footy group. I can even take it to the Salvation Army, those kinds of organizations, and they can pay some or a little of that bill. And, as you said, when that money gets paid it comes to us for about 24 hours, absolute max. We do some checks to make sure it's all legitimate and that we send it straight to the right accounts at the right company.

Speaker 1:

Every time Users can't intervene, so we don't take and we can't actually shift where that money goes. So when you're helping pay a bill via help pay, you know that hey, that was $50 towards an electricity bill. It is only going to end up in that right account at that electricity company in a day or two is time, and we pass the money through as quickly as we can as well, because there's a ticking clock on bills and we don't want someone to fall further behind by using a service like ours. Our job is to get money where it needs to be as quick as possible, with the guarantee that when you're paying it, it goes where it should.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I've got a couple of questions here. Who is it that sets up the link? Is it the person that has the bill, or is it the person who wants to pay the bill, or can either?

Speaker 1:

It's the person that has the bill that I was sharing to. You know we call ourselves help pay, but you could almost call us share pay if you like. Let's say you're in a house a share house, right and you've got some bills to share, be it electricity, water, gas rates, anything, internet. Open up the Help Pay app, put in a few of those BPay details from the bill and then you can share it to anyone via SMS or a group WhatsApp and everyone. Let's say it's a $100 internet bill, there's four people in the house, everyone now knows they need to pay $25 each, and each person can see that money getting shipped away and then it shuts off, as you said, when there's a bill paid.

Speaker 1:

The really exciting part of this is that, from a share house point of view, there's no more knocking on each other's doors and say, hey, come on, you know, can you give me some cash?

Speaker 1:

And there's, that person's not home or they don't have the exact amount on them, and all of these little fiddly bits are all taken care of with us.

Speaker 1:

It's also really handy for students living out of home. So we know that there's a lot of people that use Help Pay where, say, the child is studying in Melbourne, away from their home, from, say, wangerato or Achuka or Ballarat or vice versa, right, they've gone to uni in Canberra or wherever else in Australia and instead of the parents just sending money to their daughter or son who's studying away from home, just say hey, just like all the bills in Help Pay and I'll just pay them, and then I'll give you pocket money or a stipend or something separately. But let's get your credit record off to a great start. Let's not jeopardize that, because I think that's the unintended consequence of missing bills. You get given some money, maybe you go and have a great night out, and you still need to pay those bills. If you miss them, if you start missing them regularly, you can impact your credit record, which is a really undesirable outcome, particularly for young people just trying to get started.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, that's a great point. I hadn't thought about that.

Speaker 1:

You know, Ludwina, the main thing here is that, let's say I was to send you a link. Let's say I'm the homeowner and maybe you've rented a room off me. I've sent you the link but for whatever reason, you're unable to pay at that point in time. Well, you can just send that link on to the people that can help you pay. So if you're being sponsored by an organization or you've got an agreement in place with your mom and dad that they're going to pay the bills, you can just forward it on, knowing that. You then don't have to do two or three steps of money transfers. You can just send the bill on, know when it's being paid and their life just continues on. Happy as Larry.

Speaker 2:

So now I want to talk about do you need to have a B-pay to be able to set up a help pay link? Because in that scenario that you just described, a homeowner wouldn't have a B-pay.

Speaker 1:

You do need a B-pay at the moment and we are building the technology to be able to create a help pay link without B-pay. But it'd actually be surprised. Credit cards almost all credit cards most mortgages, rent organizations all have B-pay links and there are other websites out there which allow you to create B-pay links for specific accounts. So if you are, you know if someone's renting a room or you know owes you money for whatever else that doesn't normally have a B-pay link, there are ways of creating a B-pay link. Credit cards have B-pay links, as I said, and most electricity companies, internet companies you know there's 60,000 providers on B-pay. The most major issue providers are on B-pay.

Speaker 2:

So perhaps a renter of a room that's in the homeowner's house. The homeowner could perhaps send a link to the electricity bill that the renter could pay through that way.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Let's say I'm the homeowner and I've just got a bill for $200 for the month and you are one of four people living in the house, so it's agreed that you'll pay a quarter of the bill. I can set up a help pay link for just $50 instead of the full $200 and then that's just the super easy way for me to know that I need to pay $150 and I'll pay $150 direct, but you, as the person in my house, pays the $50 directly into AGL. Because there's all sorts of reasons. I might not want to share my BSB and account details. I might not want to share my personal banking data. I might just want a platform like HelpPays that sort of provides that extra level of security, because I'm never sharing personal identifiable information that at some point could be used against me in the future.

Speaker 2:

But just to go back to my point before, if the homeowner doesn't have a B-pay to set up the help pay to pay the rent, they could utilize another item such as an electricity bill, say. If it's $500 and maybe two weeks rent could pay that $500. Absolutely yeah. Or they could set up a B-pay using the B-pay on the credit card and then the renter could then just pay straight into that credit card account.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly that. And what we've found is that, as I mentioned, I think there's about 60,000 businesses on B-pay. The majority of major Australian companies use B-pay in one form or the other. You might have to go digging for it, but there are B-pay details for paying your credit card, I believe also paying your mortgage. Some will just have it. But yes, absolutely to your point. Let's say, for whatever reason, your internet provider wasn't using B-pay. What you could say is, hey, instead of sending me $25 for the internet, just put an extra $25 in my electricity account and I'll square it up on the other side on the internet bill. And what we find, like a lot of things that happen with B-pay, is that we are one part of a conversation. This isn't something that tends to happen on the fly, without conversation. You know there's hey, let's do it this way, let's square it up this way, let's share the costs this way, and that's a really nice, easy-going conversation, because then everyone's on the same page and everyone knows and can trust where their money is going.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I like the idea that there is a way to document the flow of it as well and also to remove conversation around money, because that can be really awkward for people. And I know that you can do direct deposits and just set it up and it can just go straight into the account. I get that, but you still don't get any kind of ledger or any kind of reporting at the end of that. That money is actually being paid on a regular basis. So there's a few advantages here that we're going to talk about shortly. But before we get into that, I just want to kind of paint a picture for how people who are renting the various different ways that they can utilize that, and I know that you shared a few of them.

Speaker 2:

So if you are in a fully share house so it's a rental house and each of you are on the lease and you're renting there are some financial dynamics that can occur within that.

Speaker 2:

There can be awkward and difficult, as you said, rowan, you know, just going and knocking on everyone's door to get their rent or to get the money for the food bill or electricity bill. This can actually void that by just setting up one link to pay that. But the same thing can go usually for the rent, because one person generally in that kind of scenario is a house manager and they sort of manage that sort of thing With a house sharing scenario on the room exchange where the homeowner is quite often house sharing for the first time, there's a lot of you know things that they're just not aware of and not comfortable with because it's not something that they've done, you know, on a regular basis. So removing the difficulty of having conversations around money can just make the ease of the relationship just work much better for everybody. So I just think there's a number of different ways that this can be utilized across the board and particularly for our customers, which I think right now is a really, really good time to mention our news.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I just wanted to quickly add, if I can, that adding formality to what is either something you'd never really talk about or, as you know, generally an informal thing, can actually make processes easier. Talking about money with family and friends can be hard enough. Talking about money with people you're only just meeting for the first time, you know, there's that kind of hey we all want to do right by each other. But how are we going to do this and it's all a bit awkward and weird and how are we going to keep a track of it? You're absolutely right that a process like HelpPay, where it's all receded and you've got that track record forever and you don't have to try and go back through months and months of hundreds of little debits and credits on people's bank statements to no, I promise you, I really did pay it, you know kind of thing just make it so much easier. Onto the news, please.

Speaker 2:

Go, go, please. I'm busting the turret. Go the world, go, go, go. No, I know. So HelpPay, rowan and I and I've got to thank Andrew Andrew, he's been really significant in pulling this off We've had a number of conversations and we're all in completed grants that this is an absolutely perfect partnership for both HelpPay and the Room Exchange. So we are now on this podcast announcing our partnership and we're very excited about being able to utilize HelpPay within our customer base and offering HelpPay as a solution for them for paying bills. You know a number of different scenarios that we've just laid out and you know, on your side, rowan, how do you see the benefit of partnering with the Room Exchange?

Speaker 1:

Well, I wish listeners could see the smile on my face right now. That's all I could say. Ludwina, we're super excited about this because it just makes, as you said, just makes sense on so many levels. You know when you're renting a room or you know. One of the examples that we've talked about in the past, if I can share quickly, is students competing in sporting events for short periods of time and they might not be the one paying. It might be the sporting organization paying, for example. This just makes life so much easier for everybody because it is just so tracked.

Speaker 1:

We are thrilled to be partnering with the Room Exchange on this front and we really hope it's going to be just a wonderful, super smooth relationship, not just between our organizations but for all of our users, between our two organizations and all of the companies that partner with both of us, Because, of course, one of the benefits for all Room Exchange users is that every company we sign up becomes transaction fee free on the platform. So currently we've got a couple of big brands on there. So if any of the people who are renting out their homes are partnering with those organizations, payments through HelpPay to those companies bills are transaction fee free. So we're really excited, we're really thrilled, and it's upwards and onwards and I feel like we should be in the same room popping a bottle of sparkling or something at the moment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it just made sense. One of the things that we're really looking at doing in the short term is partnering with organizations who can add additional value to our users and also make their life much easier, because we're heading into some very difficult times. I mean, the last couple of years have really have just been, I think, some of the most trying times that we've seen in a very long time, but the housing and the rental crisis is heading, and I've been on so many panels in the last few weeks just talking about how we can provide resources, information, to the government to help them be aware of the fact that there's all these really great resources out there that can actually help people right now. The more that we can support each other, the more we can be talking about it, and the more resources that we can be offering our communities, the stronger that this country is going to be. That's absolutely a sense to me.

Speaker 1:

I couldn't agree more and I do want to circle back to something we talked about at the very start of the podcast. Just talking about the economy, some of the headlines are daunting, but also I think they're missing the personal. Higher for longer is a really painful expression for a lot of people when things are really challenging at the moment and we talk about plateaus and higher for longer and this and that. Yeah, that means people are really going to be challenged for a really long period of time and the latest intergenerational report has forecasted that over the next 40 years economic growth is going to be 29% slower or lower than previous years, at 2.9% as opposed to 3.3 and 200-bit percent sorry, down from 3.3. I don't think people really fully understand what that means just yet, but it's where really simple solutions for community family, friends to do what you're doing, luina, with the room exchange and to do what we're doing with help pay just makes sense and for like-minded and like-hearted organisations like ours to come together.

Speaker 1:

One thing you mentioned at the start of the podcast is I really want to congratulate you. I think you've done a spectacular job identifying a problem and you made reference to really simple problems and people saying I wish I'd thought of that. I wish I'd thought of the room exchange. It's such a good idea. It's such a novel and just intuitive way to create benefit for people who want to rent out a room, for people who need a room and for the organisations associated with them, both community and for-profit. So well done to you and the team. Hats off. I think it's wonderful.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, rowan. So we have to wrap it up now. But before we do, what's next for help paying?

Speaker 1:

We are busy signing up more businesses and organizations. We've been approached by a couple of very large insurance organizations and we're working through the steps with them. We're in the process with a couple of super funds, because getting additional super contributions into particularly people returning to work, women's super balances, people starting out at work there's a huge undervalued opportunity in there and we all know that family comes first for a lot of people and that includes for the current older generation who are sitting around potentially on more than they need and wanting to see their kids and grandkids off to a really healthy start in life. We're really excited about that. We also have some potential supplier news, overseas partner news with some overseas organizations but I just have to hold that one a little bit close to my chest for now.

Speaker 2:

Damn Okay, you'll have to let me know so we can announce it. I just had that thought when you were talking about the superannuation grandparents helping younger people what a brilliant idea for birthday money.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Birthday money, celebration money, first job money. Hey, congratulations, your first job at Macca's. Wouldn't it be great if you cashed up grandma or grandpa, Instead of giving you a $50 gift voucher or something, just put it into super, because in $50 is $50. In 30 years from now it's not going to be $50 anymore. It's going to be much, much larger. You do that more and more and more. If the contributions are more than $50 each time, it can really build up. It's a much more secure future for people. Yeah, we're really excited about it. It's a really unique play on what our technology does and we're really excited by the super funds that have approached us about it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a few exciting things that you and I are talking about as well, which we can't announce yet, but we will when we can. Needless to say, watch this space. Rowan, let's talk about the business side first. Sure, what's the best way that they can get in touch with you personally? Because, obviously, if it's a business looking for a B2B solution here, how can they connect with you?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Just find me on LinkedIn. It's Rowan Wild, rowan with a W and Wild with an E, like Oscar Fantastic. I think I'm pretty much the only Rowan Wild on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2:

Great having an unusual name, isn't it All right? If users want to jump on and utilize, where can they find the app?

Speaker 1:

All of the app stores and Apple and Google. We also come to helppaycomau. There's a link to World Web Version If you don't want to install it on your phone. It's a really quick sign up. I think it takes four or five seconds, just linking your Google account or giving us an email and a password.

Speaker 2:

Great. And what's your social media handle?

Speaker 1:

helppayau on Instagram and Twitter, or you can find us on LinkedIn. Just search for helppay in the little search bar at the top there and we'll pop up. I think again, we're the only organization with helppay and you just look for the pink logo, you'll find us.

Speaker 2:

Terrific. Thank you so much for your time, rowan, and we'll get you back on the show a little bit down the road.

Speaker 1:

Looking forward to Luina. Thank you so much for having me, thanks for listening and really excited about the partnership in the future ahead.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, likewise. Ok, bye for now, thanks. Thanks for listening. If you're looking for your next rental, head over to the Room Exchange, australia's first verified house sharing platform. Our profiles make it easy to match you based on personality, values and lifestyle, and you can choose to rent or offset your rent, saving you time and money. To find out more, go to theroomexchangecom. You can connect with us across our social media platforms at theroomexchange or email admin at theroomexchangecom.

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