GraceKennedy Money Services (GKMS) will be expanding its Bill Express services to the Eastern Caribbean, starting with the collection of invoices for telecommunications company LIME in Antigua.

GKMS already operates the Western Union service from four locations in Antigua, and those will serve as the sites for Bill Express.

The service will eventually be rolled out to other areas of the Eastern Caribbean.

GKMS introduced the one-stop bill-payment facility in Jamaica in 2000 and has since been expanding its operations across the Caribbean.

Today, there are more than 250 Bill Express locations in Jamaica, with similar operations in Trinidad, Guyana, Dominica, Grenada and St Lucia.

There are also plans to expand the service further this year, GKMS said in a statement yesterday.

Considerable growth

The company said Bill Express has seen considerable growth since its foray into the bill-collection business.

Bill Express offers bill-payment services for utility companies, including the Jamaica Public Service Company, LIME and telecoms provider Digicel. It also collects Internet and cable fees, among others.

Kerrian Johnson, marketing manager at GKMS, said, "The Bill Express service will revolutionise bill payment Caribbean-wide. The days of hours dedicated to long lines and multiple stops to pay end-of-month bills will be over."

GKMS said Bill Express has recently invested in upgraded technology, which introduced several advantages to billers and customers, including multiple uploads of customer payments daily, cross-border payments to any market in which the service is offered, validation of customer payments against a database of accounts, and enhanced customer care through a web-based application used to access historic transaction information.

The GKMS brand, a wholly owned subsidiary of GraceKennedy Limited, is the umbrella brand for services offered by Western Union, FX Trader and Bill Express.

business@gleanerjm.com