Today, consumers of telecom, electricity, and water are faced with numerous challenges:

• Frustrating customer experience — especially for the unbanked — due to the gaps between what utility companies are promising and the actual service and experience.

• Fragmented ways to monitor, control, and pay for usage with varying degrees of sophistication, depending on the provider. One thing for sure, you have 3 or 4 different user journeys you go through just to know and pay for the basics of life: energy, telecom, and water.

• Lack of a consolidated and simple smartphone app to manage all your utilities bill payments in one place and pay your usage.

• There are no incentives for on-time payments.

Little to no loyalty rewards, which is due in part to the monopolistic history of most utilities, leaving consumers with the perception of being taken for granted. Little to no rewards for using eco-friendly utilities like solar energy and wind-generated electricity. How about getting rewarded with cashback for electricity consumption generated on solar grids? Imagine this becoming mainstream with its positive impact on the environment.

An average consumer manages 3 or 4 utility accounts; a telecom provider for mobile service, an electricity company to light-up the house, a water utility to pay for clean water, and a natural gas provider for heating and cooking. Each utility company has a different billing cycle with different due dates. Some accept online or mobile payment; others require cash payments at their service location, where the rest might be accepting credit/debit card payments, either on auto-pay or with manual triggers.