Social insurance funds choose POM to improve collection of social contributions

5 of the 11 social insurance funds in Belgium have chosen to work with POM to enable payment convenience for their customers for the settlement of their social contributions. Last year, Xerius was the first to offer the comfort of POM's payment technology to its customers. In the next few months, self-employed workers who are associated with Liantis, Group S, Incozina or Multipen will also be offered the possibility to pay their social contributions via POM.

Timely payments to avoid government fines

Every self-employed person in Belgium has to pay social security contributions on a quarterly basis through the social insurance fund which he or she has joined. Punctual payments are very important: in the event of late payment, the National Institute for Social Insurance for the Self-Employed will charge hefty fines. An increase of 3% on the unpaid contributions is due per quarter started. An additional 7% is added if amounts are still outstanding at the end of the year.

"As a social insurance fund, we want to support our customers as much as possible in their administrative obligations. With POM we make it extremely easy to arrange the periodic payment of social contributions and we try to prevent our customers from being confronted with such fines", says Peter Jacobs, director of the social insurance fund at Xerius.

"With the handy POM payment button in our digital payment invitations, our customers can arrange the settlement of their social contributions quickly, easily and in a completely secure way. The payment details are already entered in advance. Just clicking through is enough to make the payment".

Pay on due date at the touch of a button

"As a Xerius customer, you can also choose to schedule the payment via POM on due date. You can do that at the touch of a button, after confirming your account number", adds Tom Totté, co-founder of POM.

"This way you can keep the amount due in your account for as long as possible without much effort. 5 days before the effective collection we will send a reminder so that you can top up the balance on your account if necessary. Of course you can also choose to execute the payment immediately through the integration of POM with payment providers Bancontact and Klarna. Moreover, making a payment via POM is completely free for the payer".

Positive reactions from the self-employed

The simplified way of paying is received very positively by the customers of Xerius. A recent survey among self-employed people who paid their social security contributions through POM in the fourth quarter of 2018 revealed an average satisfaction score of 4,25 (on a scale from 0 (terrible) to 5 (fantastic)).

Below is a selection of responses we received:

• "Super simple, no need for card readers or other complex operations."
• "Very nice and innovative system! I'm happy with it!"
• "I like the way it is set up: it's really easy ... Well done!"
• "We like it so much that we decided to offer POM's payment services to the customers of our SMB as well!"

Also for customers of Liantis, Group S, Incozina and Multipen

The benefits of paying social contributions through POM did not go unnoticed to the other social insurance funds in Belgium. Self-employed people who are affiliated with Liantis can already use the POM payment button via the customer portal today. Integrations at Group S, Incozina and Multipen will follow in the coming months, so that their customers can also enjoy the payment comfort of POM for the settlement of their social contributions.