US electronic payments association NACHA's Council for Electronic Billing and Payment (CEBP) has issued final guidelines for the use of Quick Response (QR) - see below - codes in consumer bill payment.

Specifically, the QR encoding for Consumer Bill Pay Guidelines identify voluntary standards for using QR codes in both biller direct and consolidator/aggregator billing and payment models. It contains recommendations regarding QR code size, data to be included in the QR code and layout of the data represented in the QR code, among others. The goal of the guideines is to establish a single QR code format that can be printed on a paper bill and scanned by the consumer's mobile phone using a biller, mobile banking or generic QR code reader. In this way, billers and service providers can enable QR encoding in a standardized format, providing certainty for biller and banking clients and ensuring a consistent experience for consumers.

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QR codes are going to become even more important as consumers expand their use of billing channels to pay.QR codes make it so much easier to pay bills by mobile.