By: Ken Chase
JPMorgan Chase has revealed that it is piloting a new platform designed to help landlords and property managers invoice and receive rental payments. Commercial banking division chief innovation officer Sam Yen confirmed that the bank’s new Story software has been designed to help both landlords and renters move beyond the paper checks that now dominate rental payments in the U.S.
Even as digital payments have become commonplace throughout the economy, more than three-quarters of all renters continue to rely on paper checks each month. For many of those renters, that monthly rental payment is the only time they ever use their checkbooks.
The reason for that reliance on checks for rental payment is simple: the rental housing market is so decentralized that many property owners’ portfolios are not large enough to justify maintaining independent electronic payment platforms. For those property owners and managers, paper checks have long been the only efficient way to manage rental payments.
JPMorgan hopes to change that dynamic with its Story software by providing the nation’s property owners with a payments platform that can benefit operations of any size. According to the bank, Story was designed as a way to improve real estate operators’ rent collection process, while also providing renters with a simpler way to automate their payments electronically.
