Farewell to the old payment slip, here comes the pagoPA notice: the story of a monumental change

A small revolution is about to take place in the Enel world: soon we will say goodbye to the old postal payment slip included in the bill, which will be replaced by a pagoPA payment notice, the system for payments to the public administration and public service providers in Italy. It is a change that affects a large portion of Enel’s customer base, especially those who still prefer not to use direct debit for their bills, around 60% of the total. It is an important practical shift, because the pagoPA payment notice is updated in real time based on the customer's account, and the payment is instantly notified to Enel. The match between the customer and the bill becomes instant and accurate, removing friction and complications around payment confirmations, such as the situation of those who were forced to send a fax to prove they had paid the bill in case of delays. Another benefit of this innovation is the opening of payment channels, pagoPA is supported by more than 380 institutions and both digital and physical tools available to customers, giving them greater transparency and convenience.

The two coordinators of this historic transformation are Rosario Bosso and Luciano Piscopo, who, curiously, both joined the company on the same day thirty-eight years ago. A perfectly parallel path, as colleagues, friends and travel companions, which led them to work side by side on the pagoPA transition, Bosso as head of payment systems, direct debit and risk management, therefore project lead on the IT side, and Piscopo as project manager on the business side. «The work on pagoPA was a sort of diarchy», comments the latter, «They used to call us "the odd couple", or "watch out for those two"». Through coordination and teamwork, the «odd couple» managed to achieve a result that, as Bosso explains, «is a win-win for the company, which eliminates several steps and cost items, and for the customer, who can settle their account in a much simpler and faster way».

As with every change at Enel, the ultimate goal is always the same: to make customers’ lives easier. Thanks to the pagoPA payment notice, the gap between the customer and the energy provider is significantly reduced. Piscopo explains: «We wanted to modernize processes and provide the customer with a payment method that offers immediate confirmation, accessible from any institution, and that reflects in real time in our systems». It is a shift that deserves to be fully appreciated. «The communication impact for customers was significant», the two colleagues explain, «We notified them in all previous bills, then we launched the social communication phase. The message we want to convey is that habits do not necessarily have to change, anyone who wants to continue as before does not have to change any procedure». Those who went to the tobacconist can continue to go to the tobacconist, those who went to the post office can keep going to the post office. «It is the operator’s behavior behind the counter that changes, making the service provided to the customer more automatic and efficient».

It has been a long journey, the project started taking shape in July 2020 and immediately turned out to be very complex, especially from an IT point of view, also because it was necessary to find a solution that would cover both companies in the Italian market, connecting the two credit systems into a single project. Today we are in a transitional phase, in which both the old slip and the new payment notice are still operational. In the month of July, a portion of the bills from both companies in the Italian market will be replaced with pagoPA notices, and by September the new system will be fully implemented for both companies, and we will stop producing postal payment slips. The future, as we have experienced in many areas of our lives over the past two years, is the QR code, which we have all now learned to use, and which is at the heart of the pagoPA notice. That code can be used in both digital environments, such as other payment apps, and physical points, such as tobacconists, stationery shops, and of course, the post office. In June, Piscopo personally carried out the first payment trial using a pagoPA notice, to check that everything was working perfectly. The payment went through smoothly, it was the certification of the change in progress. For customers, it is a future where Enel is even faster and closer, for Bosso and Piscopo, it is the highest point of a long journey that began on the same day and lasted almost forty years.