Durham Goes Online for Speeding Tickets

Durham region residents will be the first to benefit from a new service by paytickets.ca which will enable them to settle speeding fines online through the paytickets.ca web site.

The online payment of speeding tickets follows on the heels of Teranet's successful development of an online system for paying parking fines. This service was created in conjunction with RBC Financial Group.

In general, people with speeding tickets report that they're more likely to pay fines if the process is quick and convenient. By eliminating the need to stand in line, deal with the mail or travel to municipal offices, paytickets.ca offers a simple and easy way to settle tickets issued under the Ontario Provincial Offences Act.

"The paytickets.ca service was easy to implement and will make a real difference to people here in the Region of Durham," said Joel Nicholson, POA collection supervisor, Durham Region. "The capability of processing transactions online at any time of the day just makes life more convenient. For municipalities, this service helps us meet the needs of our residents in an efficient manner through our alliance with Teranet and RBC Financial Group."

Benefits to Durham and other municipalities come in the form of reduced administrative costs, simplified payment reconciliation and data management and lower ongoing operating costs, in addition to offering their citizens improved service delivery.

"Paytickets.ca has proven extremely successful and we are pleased to expand the service," commented Jim Hart, senior manager, RBC Financial Group. "Municipalities and constituents alike are recognizing the convenience of using this secure, online solution."

Municipalities can have online payment service for parking and speeding tickets up and running within 30 days, without any capital expenditure or development costs on their part. Paytickets.ca is a hosted solution that eliminates virtually all technical effort on the local government's part, and visual and brand integration with the municipality's web presence is included with the service.

Users simply enter ticket and credit card details at www.paytickets.ca or the city's web site and this data is transferred to ICON (Integrated Court Offences Network) daily, which updates the Ministry of the Attorney General records, indicating that payment has been made. That revenue is then sent to the Ontario Service Area the next day.

"Finding ways to implement innovative technology to meet the growing needs of government is our business," said Mike Power, director, eGovernment Services at Teranet. "With services like paytickets.ca, governments are seeing the advantages of electronic payment processing."

ABOUT TERANET

Teranet develops business-to-government and business-to-business e-service solutions. With a unique combination of capabilities and state-of-the-art systems, Teranet is at the forefront of enabling electronic government service delivery as well as delivering service potential in the land, legal, and financial services industries.

ABOUT RBC FINANCIAL GROUP

Royal Bank of Canada (TSX, NYSE: RY) uses the initials RBC as a prefix for its businesses and operating subsidiaries, which operate under the master brand name of RBC Financial Group. Royal Bank of Canada is Canada's largest financial institution as measured by market capitalization and assets, and is one of North America's leading diversified financial services companies. It provides personal and commercial banking, wealth management services, insurance, corporate and investment banking, and transaction processing services on a global basis. The company employs 60,000 people who serve more than 12 million personal, business and public sector clients through offices in North America and some 30 countries around the world. For more information, please visit www.rbc.com.

For more information contact:

Mike Power
Director, eGovernment Services
Teranet Inc.
416-643-1018

Bonnie Foster
Vice President, Corporate Communications and Government Relations
Teranet Inc.
416-643-1095

Jim Hart
Senior Manager, Market Management
RBC Financial Group
(416) 974-8331