Rental Rewards, page-10

Article in "The Guardian" today. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/19/pay-the-rent-and-the-rest-tenants-hit-back-at-the-rise-in-third-party-processing

"When Max* moved into a new rental property in Queensland earlier this year, one of his first questions, naturally, was how to pay the rent.So he called his new real estate agency, Harcourts Chermside, a Brisbane firm which boasts of its “high ideals and standards”. The agent sent Max an email explaining that a third-party company called RentPay was its “primary and preferred” method of collecting rent.RentPay, the email stated, was “the most cost effective and simple way” for tenants to pay their rent. If Max didn’t agree, it didn’t seem to matter: “All new leases moving forward will be required to use RentPay as their favoured method to settle rent amounts,” the email said.What it didn’t say was that by signing up to use RentPay, Max would be forced to pay a $3 set-up fee, plus a monthly fee of $2 as well as 1.25% for each transaction for any payments via Visa or Mastercard. Using BPay would attract a transaction fee of 88c."

I think the article is over-egging the issue. The tenant's rental payment is $600 a week. The article did not addess any benefits provided by the tenant-focussed features.

From the agent's POV, the article went into more depth:

"The owner of the firm, Julie Thornton, is unsympathetic to tenants in Max’s position. She says the firm uses RentPay because of its “convenience”, and receives no financial incentive.“The benefit for us and for the tenant is they’re given their own individual unique code so there’s less chance for human error,” she says.“I’m sure you’ll think I’m making this up [but] if a tenant deposits money with a direct debit they’ll put ‘rent’ as their reference. When we have 400 properties and you get 15 tenants who put ‘rent’ it takes a lot of time out of our day to track down who that money came from.“They don’t have to use RentPay … I’m more than happy for them to come in and pay cash.”RentPay did not respond to a request for comment."

Public discussion about the role of these services is not a bad thing as it can shape future product improvements.