How integrated payments are optimizing government services

Fragmented payment and account management systems not only fuel resident frustration and internal inefficiencies but also impede efforts by state and local government agencies to deliver truly effective public services. In a recent StateScoop video panel underwritten by PayIt, Santi Garces, Chief Information Officer for the City of Boston, and PayIt President Tom Nieto shed light on these challenges and how integrated solutions are paving the way for cities to transform their operations and citizen experiences.

According to Garces, Boston faces a problem spanning two dimensions: “The first one is we have this very broad set of services that span across the city, so all the way from wanting to buy a hot dog from a food truck that is managed by some kids at a vocational school, to paying your taxes,” he says. The other is that people want to do business in various ways, whether paying online, by phone, in person, with cash or by credit card. “The fact that it’s so broad, the fact that there’s multi-modality depth…means that we tend to have gaps, and making and creating a good experience across all these pieces is challenging,” says Garces.

To overcome these obstacles, PayIt President Tom advocates for a “consumer-based approach” that creates a horizontal layer for resident interactions. “If I’m a constituent of a jurisdiction… how I interact with [the] jurisdiction ideally should look and feel the same no matter which department or where I’m at,” he says. According to Nieto, modern systems and technology solutions make transactions as “simple and intuitive as possible” for residents, moving away from the historically disparate experiences of paying property taxes versus parking tickets. From the agency side, Nieto says combining data into a single, secure system allows them to address critical security concerns. “You can increase your security posture and decrease your security surface attack vectors,” he says.

Garces outlined what Boston does at the macro and micro levels to track improvement as it works toward an integrated transaction management system. “Our sense is that if we’re able to do things that are consistent across the board, we should see an improvement in satisfaction, decrease in cost, decreasing abandoned transactions and increasing collections,” he says.

Nieto reiterated the focus on user-centric design and adoption rates, saying that agencies should aim for digital government experiences to mirror the high adoption of online banking (typically 85-90%). “If people are coming in and using it, and ideally using it over and over again, that means that they’re finding value in it,” he says.

Looking ahead, both leaders advocate for continuous innovation to improve the citizen experience and optimize government operations. Garces emphasized the philosophical aspect of trust in government interactions. “Paying government, your taxes, whatever fee, whatever that you’re trying to do, is an act of trust,” he says. He envisions a future where services are frictionless, helpful and “meet people where they are.” Meanwhile, Nieto anticipates a heavy push toward automation and AI to address internal capacity issues and free up staff for higher-value activities. “I think continuing to move forward the experience, both on the constituent side and the staff side, is really important, so that the time can be spent on the places where you really add value, versus where you spend a lot of time on the more manual processes,” he says.

Learn how modernizing payment platforms and digitizing resident transactions improve the constituent experience and internal efficiency.

This video panel discussion was produced by Scoop News Group for StateScoop and underwritten by PayIt.