paythru launches in-app mobile payment service

Mobile payments company paythru has announced the launch of its in-app payment service. The service will allow developers to integrate payment into the app itself, so consumers don’t have to switch out to pay.

What’s the story?

paythru is a mobile payment service that has been around since 2003 – although it was called txttrans back then. Last year it launched the third version of its service, and rebranded as paythru. It was initially hosted service that works via SMS, so it was usable on any device on the market. All it requires is a merchant that is signed on to Paythru, and you can pay via SMS.

The newly launched in-app solution works differently. It works from completely within the application, and allows a variety of different pay-to-access service – so customers can pay to upgrade the app, or for the full version; buy content within the app; access paywalled content; etc.

paythru claims it has launched this service mainly because it was a heavily discussed topic earlier this year – Keith Brown, MD of paythru, says “the biggest discussions at GSMA were around how to monetise apps effectively. Applications have the potential to be great marketing or sales tools, but they’re no good if you can’t make revenue from them – either because you have no option to upgrade a free app to a paid service, or because you’re giving away a large percentage of  your download revenues to an app store. We were asked to help solve that problem, and so we developed the in-app payment system.”