Electronic bill payment venture BPAY is preparing to add QR codes to bills to let users scan a code and pay their bills using either a smartphone or tablet.Users who access an application and scan a bill's QR code will have many of their details pre-populated on a form on their device to make payment easier.According to Keith Brown, BPAY's general manager of business services, the first financial institutions will start to offer the QR-enabled service early in 2013, and he expects the first billers to sign up around the same time. Australians have been enthusiastic adopters of mobile financial services. Research firm Frost & Sullivan says 57 per cent of Australians with a smartphone use it for mobile banking. BPAY, which handles A$1 billion worth of payments each day, is clearly looking to increase that percentage.BPAY will make the QR codes available either on the physical bills that are mailed to people, or on electronic versions of bills, which people can choose to access through BPAY's digital mailbox service, BPAY View. The QR code can also be used by billers to encourage more consumers to sign up to BPAY View.Brown said 1.5 million Australians had now signed up to receive bills through BPAY View, which has been in operation for 10 years.  While BPAY View has the lion's share of the digital mailbox business in Australia today, it faces challenges from Australia Post and the Computershare/Fuji Xerox/Zumbox joint venture, Digital Post Australia. Both have announced digital mail box services in recent months.To shore up its position, BPAY is planning a major marketing campaign for February 2013, with the backing of its four major bank owners. Brown said that consumers would feel more comfortable using a digital mailbox backed by the four big banks, as it would allow them to "make payments in an environment they feel comfortable in."He said that demand for the service was currently rising by about 20 per cent a year, and that there was the potential for BPAY View to be used to handle up to one billion items a year.