JPMorgan Chase is betting that landlords and tenants are lastly able to ditch paper checks and embrace digital funds. The financial institution is piloting a platform it created for property homeowners and managers that automates the invoicing and receipt of on-line lease funds, in response to Sam Yen, chief innovation officer of JPMorgan’s business banking division. Whereas digital funds have steadily taken over extra of the world’s transactions, boosted lately by the pandemic, there may be one nook of commerce the place paper nonetheless reigns supreme: the month-to-month lease verify. That’s as a result of the market is extremely fragmented, with many of the nation’s 12 million property homeowners operating smaller portfolios of fewer than 100 items.
Because of this, about 78% are nonetheless paid utilizing old-school checks and cash orders, in response to JPMorgan. Greater than 100 million Individuals pay a mixed $500 billion yearly in lease, the financial institution mentioned. “The overwhelming majority of lease funds are nonetheless accomplished by checks,” Yen mentioned in a latest interview. “When you speak to residents to this present day, they typically say ‘The one motive I’ve a checkbook nonetheless is to pay my lease.’ So there are many alternatives to offer efficiencies there.”
JPMorgan has spent the previous few years engaged on the software program, known as Story, which is supposed to in the end change into an all-in-one property administration resolution. Moreover having to manually acquire paper checks and depositing them, landlords usually lean on decades-old software program together with Microsoft’s Excel and Intuit ’s QuickBooks to run their companies, mentioned Yen. Newer choices extra tailor-made to the actual property business have appeared lately with names like Buildium and TurboTenant. None are dominant but, in response to the manager. Story will “give [property owners and managers] rather more visibility throughout their total portfolio to see precisely what’s been paid and what hasn’t been paid,” Yen mentioned.
Supply: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/31/jpmorgan-chase-unveils-payments-platform-for-landlords-and-tenants.html