MuniPay was designed to meet the specific needs of the municipalities when accepting property tax, water, sewer, and other utility payments. The payments are made via the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and municipalities will receive each individual payment as an ACH credit directly into its operating account. The municipality will also receive a daily remittance file detailing the day’s payment activity which can be easily uploaded into its reconciliation software.
With a streamlined process and no upfront cost, municipality onboarding can be completed in less than 1 week, according to the company. Additionally, paymints.io states that for a municipality of 100,000 residents or more, MuniPay can save the municipality over $500,000 of operational expenses associated with collecting, tracking, and depositing paper checks.
The antiquated way of printing a check and then typing out a cover letter detailing the property owner name, property address, block, lot, beneficiary, and pay period is now replaced by a secure portal that transfers funds directly from the settlement agent’s escrow account to the municipality’s operating account.
After an 8-month effort to build out the MuniPay enhancement, paymints.io will continue to beta test the platform throughout the end of 2021 with the goal of adding another 100 municipalities by the end of 2022. Future enhancements of MuniPay will also be released in 2022, allowing municipalities to refund and return payments to title agencies for property tax payments already made by the loan servicer or previous owner. A process that often takes 6-8 months consumed by multiple phone calls, letters, and checks in the mail, will be completed in fewer than 2 days, according to the company.
