Annual 350,000 Cases of 'Water Bill Moving Settlement'... Seoul City Offers Contactless Service from Inquiry to Payment

User Preference Shift from Cash Handover to Direct Payment... Tenfold Increase in Separate Billing
Priority Implementation for 'Residential Water Charges' Starting March... Plan to Expand to All Industries in the Second Half of This Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 4th that it will implement a 'One-stop water bill moving settlement user separate billing' service from March, allowing non-face-to-face inquiry and payment of water bills when changing water users such as moving.

From now on, Seoul water users who want separate billing while settling moving bills can directly check and pay the fees non-face-to-face through the mobile app (Arisu App) and website (Arisu Cyber Customer Center) without a phone application. Accordingly, the approximately 350,000 annual moving settlements are expected to become more convenient.

Until now, the water bill separate billing service in Seoul was practically only available by phone application. Users could check the bill by entering the water meter reading directly on the 'Arisu App' or 'Cyber Customer Center,' but to pay, they had to separately call the waterworks office staff to apply for separate billing.

According to Seoul City, moving settlements related to water bill complaints have been steady at about 350,000 cases annually, and among them, the number of separate billing applications due to user changes such as moving increased more than tenfold from 15,000 cases in 2017 to 166,000 cases last year. This is interpreted as a result of the traditional cash handover method between old and new users for water bill moving settlements being replaced by an increased preference for paying settlement fees directly via virtual accounts due to recent developments in information and communication technology (ICT) and changes in citizens' awareness.

The service application method is to access the mobile app (Arisu App) or website (Arisu Cyber Customer Center), enter the customer number and meter reading, upload photos, check the moving settlement fee, and then make the payment. The One-stop water bill moving settlement user separate billing service implemented by Seoul City will be first applied only to household units receiving water bills from March and is planned to be expanded to all industries by the second half of this year.

Gu Ami, head of the Waterworks Business Headquarters, said, “We were able to provide a convenient service that meets citizens' demands by understanding the increasing trend of complaints about separate billing for water bill moving settlements,” and added, “We will continue to strive to build an electronic innovation system that actively reflects such technological and social changes.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.