Rating: Crucially supports billing to handset over Wi-fi
An important alliance has been forged by Bango and Telefónica Digital over a direct-to-bill payment capability mostly aimed at mobile app stores. What Telefónica brings to the party is some 314 million chargeable customers worldwide. Importantly, trials of direct-to-bill on Telefónica’s mobile networks have proven its ability to drive sales. The prime advantage to Bango’s platform is that it supports billing to handsets even over Wi-fi. The pair are also hoping to entice others to utilise Telefónica’s BlueVia payment APIs.
Support for Wi-fi is particularly important for mobile payments as Bango believes over half of smartphones use Wi-fi connections when browsing app stores.
By integrating the single BlueVia billing API into the Bango Payments Platform, app stores will benefit from Bango’s proven higher payment conversion rates – especially when Wi-fi connected or for other ‘off-network’ devices.
“BlueVia is a valuable and bold initiative by Telefónica to establish a unified set of billing APIs,” said Bango’s CEO, Ray Anderson.
“We will standardise on BlueVia to connect with Telefónica’s 314 million subscribers around the world and look forward to welcoming other operators who join this initiative, as Telenor has done.”
Direct-to-bill payments are especially critical in developing markets – such as Latin America, where the majority are unbanked – with no bank accounts or credit cards.
The ability to pay for digital goods and services via a mobile phone bill or prepay credit is a key way for content owners and developers to fully monetise their products.
Bango claims its platform expands the attractiveness of operator billing to third parties by automating all settlement processes, -including tax reconciliation and local currency support.
It also provides sophisticated analytics and reporting that enable app stores to optimise the mobile user experience.
More information from the Press release here.
