The hidden growth curve in EBPP across ANZ and APAC

Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) in Australia, New Zealand, and the broader Asia-Pacific region has reached an interesting tipping point. What began as a cost-cutting measure to replace paper with pixels is now evolving into something much more strategic – a battleground for customer engagement, data-driven insights and new payment flows.

For the last two decades, EBPP in the region has been quietly building scale. Government agencies, utilities, telcos and financial services providers have been steadily moving customers from physical bills to some form of electronic delivery. But a closer look reveals that while adoption numbers can appear high, they hide a crucial detail: a large proportion of what is counted as “electronic” is still just email.

And while email meets the technical definition of EBPP – the bill is presented electronically, the customer clicks through to pay online – it represents the most basic form of the model. It’s cheap, it’s easy, but it’s also insecure, inconsistent and increasingly ignored in crowded inboxes. The real growth story over the next five years will be in richer, more secure and more integrated bill-to-payment journeys.

The market in numbers

Australia processes around 900 million* household bills annually. Depending on the source, between 40 and 50 percent of those are now delivered electronically. In New Zealand, roughly 250 million* bills go out each year, with penetration sitting in the 35–40% range. Those figures sound impressive until you peel back the layers and realise a large share of those “e-bills” are simply PDFs sent via email.

That means hundreds of millions of bills are still being sent through physical post and an even larger proportion are missing the opportunity to deliver a truly secure, interactive, ‘straight-through’ payment experience. For billers, that’s billions of dollars still tied up in paper, postage, and manual payment processing costs.

Across APAC, the scale is magnified. The region has over three billion utility accounts alone, with an average billing frequency of six to twelve times per year. That’s 18 to 36 billion bills annually — and in many developing markets, upwards of 60% are still delivered physically. Even where “electronic” penetration is claimed, email often dominates.

From a market sizing perspective, this creates two distinct opportunity curves: first, shifting the remaining paper volumes to digital; second, upgrading email-based EBPP to secure, fully integrated digital channels that can host richer customer experiences and more seamless payment flows.

Why the next phase is different

Several macro forces are converging to accelerate this shift beyond email.

One is regulation. In Australia, the government is pushing mandatory eInvoicing in the B2B space, which is already raising awareness and setting standards that will inevitably influence B2C and B2G billing. Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative has long tied citizen engagement to digital service delivery, while in India, the integration of bill payments into the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system is bringing hundreds of millions of consumers into structured, trackable payment flows.

Cost pressure is another. Paper, print, and postage costs have been rising faster than inflation and in many APAC countries, those increases are compounded by volatile currency exchange rates and fluctuating supply chain costs. Sustainability targets are adding a second layer of pressure, forcing large billers to reduce paper usage not just to save money, but to meet environmental reporting obligations.

Then there’s the human factor. Email open rates are declining across most markets, particularly for transactional messages that aren’t paired with richer, secure digital experiences. Consumers in Southeast Asia have leapfrogged to mobile-first payment habits, using QR codes, wallet apps, and super-app ecosystems like WeChat that keep bills and payments in one place. That behaviour is increasingly shaping expectations in more mature markets like Australia and New Zealand, where consumers are ready to adopt more sophisticated digital bill management if it’s offered.

Finally, multinational organisations operating across APAC face the challenge of delivering a consistent billing and payment experience across multiple regulatory environments, languages, and payment preferences. Email doesn’t solve that complexity; integrated EBPP platforms can.

Where payment networks fit in

For payment networks, processors and fintech enablers, EBPP is more than a transaction channel – it’s a customer touchpoint that happens with predictable frequency and can be enriched to drive loyalty, cross-sell and deeper engagement.

Owning or influencing the presentation layer of a bill – not just the payment rails – brings a significant advantage. It allows for embedded payment options that reduce drop-off rates, targeted offers that leverage payment history and analytics that feed into broader credit and financial service offerings.

Thinking about a secure, digital bill presentment presentation layer that is consumer-centric – where the customer chooses to receive multiple bills in one trusted place – creates a communication channel that complements rather than replaces other channels. This approach strengthens, rather than fragments, the EBPP ecosystem.

In Australia and New Zealand, the strong penetration of digital banking means EBPP can be seamlessly integrated into bank apps and digital wallets, with bill presentment becoming a natural extension of a customer’s day-to-day banking experience. This is already evident in Singapore’s PayNow ecosystem and Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System, where EBPP is tied directly into real-time payment capabilities.

In emerging APAC markets, EBPP has the potential to become a gateway to financial inclusion. For unbanked or underbanked populations, mobile wallet-based bill payment provides a recurring, traceable financial activity that can be leveraged for credit building, micro loans, and other financial products.

The five-year outlook

Industry analysts forecast the global EBPP market to grow steadily at 10–12% CAGR through to 2030, with APAC consistently highlighted as one of the fastest-growing regions. Credence Research, for example, projects the global market to expand from USD 28 billion in 2024 to USD 63.5 billion by 2032, while 360iResearch estimates a rise from USD 38 billion to USD 82 billion by 2030. APAC’s growth trajectory will be driven by mobile-first consumer behaviours, government-backed digital initiatives and the shift away from paper and email toward secure, interactive channels.

This evolution will be underpinned by three overlapping trends. The first is the migration from paper to digital in laggard segments such as regional utilities, local councils, and smaller financial institutions. The second is the steady move from email to secure digital channels – whether through banking apps, trusted portals, or multi-biller digital mailboxes – to address rising expectations for compliance, security, and convenience. The third is the transformation of EBPP from a static PDF replacement into an interactive transaction layer, capable of hosting reminders, loyalty programs, instalment options and financing offers directly in the bill experience.

The growth picture won’t be evenly distributed. In mature ANZ markets, much of the opportunity lies in enhancing the value layer: delivering bills in ways that deepen customer relationships and optimise payment timing. In emerging APAC markets, the opportunity is more foundational, with billers able to leapfrog email entirely and move straight to mobile-first, wallet-integrated EBPP.

Together, these shifts suggest that EBPP in APAC will not only outpace other regions in growth but also evolve in ways that blend payments, loyalty and engagement more tightly than traditional models.

Beyond the email inbox

The next wave of EBPP adoption in ANZ and APAC will be less about whether a bill is digital and more about how it is delivered, secured and embedded in a customer’s daily financial life. Email will remain part of the mix, but as a secondary or fallback channel. For serious billers, it will be complemented – or replaced – by platforms that can offer authentication, encryption, payment integration and rich engagement features.

For payments innovators, that’s where the real battle will be fought. Whoever owns the bill-to-payment journey will control not only transaction revenue, but also the data, the customer mindshare and the ability to innovate on top of recurring payment behaviour.

It’s a space where regulatory trends, consumer expectations, and commercial incentives are all pointing in the same direction – and for those ready to move beyond the email inbox, the opportunity in EBPP is far from tapped out.

Where the next leap happens

As ANZ and APAC billers look beyond the email inbox, the challenge will be finding solutions that are secure, compliant, and easy to deploy across diverse systems and markets. That’s where platforms like Payreq are playing a critical role — moving bills out of vulnerable email channels and into secure, authenticated environments that complement and integrate with existing systems, scale across regions, and actually drive on-time payments.

In a market where “electronic” is no longer enough, this shift is how EBPP will deliver on its full potential.

We’ve published a series of blogs exploring where EBPP is heading — from compliance shifts to customer behaviour trends. Browse the series, or reach out if you’d like to discuss what these changes mean for your billing strategy.

*Based on an estimated number of households receiving multiple bills per year.