Public services to be paid online in a 20,000 resident city

At the beginning of the year Camarillo, a Californian city, began offering its citizens online payments for the public services. At present over 1,150 utility customers in Camarillo decided to take advantage of the offer.

Camarillo's online utility bill-payment and information service named Click2gov was introduced in February.

As per most recent figures available more than 1,200 utility customers visited the site for information and 1,152 of those customers also completed the process to use their credit or debit cards to pay their bills.

"It's not an automatic bill-pay system," said Kris Inloes, the city's customer service supervisor. "Residents have to go onto the site and pay their bills themselves."

There are over 22,000 citizens in Camarillo and the figures show that these changes are rather welcome with them.

A personal ID number or PIN was sent to every consumer so as to prove their access to be secure.

"Once they go onto the site, they can then change their password to make it more personal for them," Inloes said.

"It's simple to get on and secure," said Robin Humberstone, who works for the city as an information systems analyst and also uses Click2gov.

"I can go on anytime, 24/7, make a payment, check my consumption," he said. "It's really transparent and easy to use."