Students can pay their bills by SMS in Philadelphia’s Universtity City

In West Philadelphia, there’s an area called University City. With a huge number of University’s in the neighborhoods that comprise the City, it also has a large number of students. Today, it has been announced that SMS-based mobile payment services are being rolled out to the students.

What’s the story?

Campus Apartments is a student accommodation body that operates across the USA. And on many of those campuses, a company called Campus Technologies provides telecoms services to the students living there. In Campus Apartments, the residents get a service called Phillynet, which is a local telephone service, high-speed Internet and digital TV service. So Campus Apartments has entered into a deal with mobile payment provider Xipwire to provide a mobile payment option for the 3,000 students living in  the Philadelphia location. The payment service is extremely specific – it allows these students to pay their monthly Phillynet bill by SMS.

Who’s Xipwire?

Xipwire is a mobile wallet provider – you basically create a Xipwire account, to which you link your actual bank account. You can then load money onto your Xipwire account – and pay money from there into any other Xipwire account through a simple text message. So Phillynet has been set up with a permanent Xipwire account, into which the students can transfer funds from their own accounts.

What we think?

I’ve got two thoughts about this service. First, this is a mobile payment service that could actually see a lot of use from students. It depends only on SMS – you don’t need any applications or smartphones to use it. That means it’s got a much larger potential consumer base than app-anchored services. Second, it’s a smart move from Xipwire. They can almost guarantee 3,000 new customers from Campus Apartments. And as new students filter into the accommodation, they’ll pick up a rolling customer base.