Palo Alto-based Obopay this morning is announcing what it calls the "first complete mobile payment service ever offered in the United States" saying that it will be "a milestone in a transformation in financial services that will make the mobile phone the central device consumers use to make purchases and share money."
NTT DoCoMo banking on wallet phone
NTT DoCoMo announced it will pay $76.9 million for a 2 percent stake in Japan's second-largest convenience store chain in order to outfit the stores with technology that supports new mobile phones outfitted with credit card-like functionality. Initially, the deal will allow all subscribers to NTT DoCoMo's credit card payment service--Osaifu-Keitai--to use their mobile phones to pay for goods at 100 locations in and around Tokyo. The service will expand to all 8,300 stores by the end of March next year. I guess that's one way carriers can ensure a market for bleeding edge technologies.
- from Fierce Wireless
It's Springtime and there's PayPal in the Air! PayPal Mobile that is.
Last week, the world learned a bit more about PayPal's next steps in mobile payments and mobile commerce. This weekend, we've taken a deeper look at PayPal's move into mobile payments.» Paypal Launches Mobile Payment and Buying Options
Related Topics: Payments — Permalink - Comments (0) [by rafat]
This is as big as it gets in the mobile payments field, at least in U.S.: Paypal has launched a mobile phone payment and buy option…
— On sending payments through our phone, as Russell explains it well: go to PayPal, sign in, add a new phone to your profile and mark it as mobile. The site will offer you the chance to confirm the phone so you can use it to make payments, then you enter a pin number, and an IVR system will call your phone and prompt you to type in the PIN, then you can send money. I tested it out and it is very easy…I used the IVR to send money, not the text option.
— Paypal is also offering another option to buy using their service: it is called Text2Buy and it is buying using a text message: “Where you see Text to Buy — on a poster, in a magazine, at an event — just order the item securely by text message.” The service doesn/t seem to have any merchants attached to it yet… --Paypal’s History in Mobile: Some Links
Security is obviously an issue, but every transaction with PayPal Mobile requires a PIN that you set up when activating the mobile features. PayPal will also come back and ask for confirmation via an automated call for each transaction. During the sign up process PayPal will call the phone number you set up to make sure it's you. It's automated and you need to input your PIN and if it matches what you put online your account will be activated.
There has been no official announcement yet and it appears things are still changing and slightly buggy (we had to hunt around a bit to find the right place to sign up). Currently the service is only for customers in the US, Canada or UK.
[via PSFK]
Paypal have launched a new service that allows people to send money to other people via their phone. You can send money one of two ways: (a) by Texting to 729725 (PAYPAL) with the amount and recipient’s phone number (Example: send 5 to 4150001234) or (b) calling 1-800-4PAYPAL (1-800-472-9725) and follow the instructions.
Posted by Guy Brighton on March 21, 2006 at 06:41 PMHot on the heels of yesterday’s post, comes this amazing news from PayPal that PayPal is launching a mobile product!
According the the Internet Payment Giant’s website, it is now possible to send and recieve money via mobile phones as well as make purchases directly from a mobile phone. According to their published materials:
Send money to friends and familySend money securely, anytime, from wherever you are. You don’t need cash or a check – just your phone.
After you activate your phone, you can send money one of two ways:
* Text to 729725 (PAYPAL) with the amount and recipient’s phone number.
Example: send 5 to 4150001234
Or
* Call 1-800-4PAYPAL (1-800-472-9725) and follow the instructions.
Since a picture is worth more than a thousand words, here’s a screen cap from their website. I’ll be revisiting this later today with more details.
Our ambition is to become the preferred online payment method. But people also want access to their funds and will want to go to an ATM and pull money out. So there is going to be more presence offline over time.
UK MoCo market to triple by 2010
According to a recent report conducted by PayPal and Datamonitor, the U.K. market for digital content will reach £1.14 billion by 2010, a three-fold growth from £380 million in 2005. The uptake in 3G mobile will drive the market growth as mobile music, movie clips and mobile TV services mature over the next five years. Last year, ringtones, realtones and screensavers made up two-thirds of mobile content sales, while mobile gaming accounted for much of the remaining third, however, full-track music will rake in £200 million in sales in 2010. Video downloads will account for 11 percent of MoCo sales within the next four years. PayPal's conclusion, of course, is that "the challenge will be in creating [a] payment mechanism that means businesses can monetize their content without being entirely beholden to the mobile networks."
For more information on the U.K.'s MoCo market:
- check out this article from mobileeurope.co.uk
Enpocket founders launch SMS auctions
Three founding members of Enpocket have launched an SMS-based auction service, called Limbo 41414, that sees the lowest unique bidder winning the (usually) expensive item. Rob Lawson, Jonathon Linner and Juho-Pekka Virolainen, all former Enpocket founders, started Limbo late last year. The auction service carried out 55 auctions in beta that included a video iPod that went for $4.30 and a $3,000 42" plasma TV that the company auctioned off for $8.85. Some of the SMS bids for the auctions will require an additional fee beyond those of the bidder's service provider, but excluding those service provider fees, some of the company's auctions will be free. Limbo's backers include Azure Capital Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which backed Hotmail and Skype.
For more on the launch of Limbo 41414:
- take a look at this press release
By Bradley Johnson
A majority—57 percent—of teens age 13-17 now have a cell phone, but that’s far below the 80 percent of adults 18-plus who own a phone. Still, for a glimpse of the future, look no further than Generation Wireless.
Cell-phone users age 13-17 are connected to their phones by ear, eye and touch like no other age group. They are far more likely than other demographic groups to use a broad range of data services, and they will be first in line to try emerging offerings like cell-phone TV.
“They’re crazy for mobile,” said Mark Donovan, VP-senior analyst with M:Metrics, a research firm that tracks wireless content and applications. “They see [a phone] as this little digital communicator that they can take with them wherever they go.”
Their young-adult peers—age 18-24—are more likely than younger teens to snap cell-phone pictures and buy ringtones, according to M:Metrics data. But for most wireless content and features, young users are the biggest enthusiasts.
Generation Wireless has been a digital demo from birth, growing up after the dawn of cellular (the first U.S. service went live in 1983) and with the Internet (the first major Web browser debuted in 1993).
Getting a cell phone is a rite of passage for teens. Just 12 percent of kids age 8-12 have a wireless phone, but that jumps to nearly half—49 percent—for ages 13-15, according to a Harris Interactive youth survey last year. By age 18-21, cell-phone penetration (81 percent) is in line with the average for all adults (80 percent).
The top reason teens cite for getting a cell phone is safety, according to Telephia, a market research firm. That’s not surprising: Parents decide when the kids go wireless. “Parents love kids to have mobile phones,” said Glen LeBlanc, research director for wireless services at NPD Group. “It’s an electronic leash.”
Parents pick their children’s wireless service in about two-thirds (68 percent) of cases, Telephia said. Family plans are the standard; 62 percent of teens age 13-17 are on a family plan for wireless, according to NPD’s Mobile Consumer Track. NPD said another 15 percent of teens use a prepaid phone—such as TracFone, Virgin, Boost or T-Mobile To Go—that effectively caps their use.
Parents set limits
Most of the time, mom and dad foot the bill for wireless. That gives parents more reason to set limits on data features, such as text messaging, which carry tolls. “I have to believe that in households across the nation, there are ongoing negotiations about what’s appropriate to do with your cell phone,” said M:Metrics’ Donovan.
But there’s no denying that the biggest users of premium wireless features—messaging, game downloads, photo services, sports information, entertainment news—are young consumers having fun at someone else’s expense. Among kids age 13-17—the heaviest overall users of such services—just 18 percent pay for their cell service, said Mr. LeBlanc. Among the second heaviest users—18-24—38 percent pay the bills.
Teens age 13-17 are three times as likely as the average cell-phone owner to use their phones to access shopping guides and content from men’s and women’s magazines, according to M:Metrics. They use phone features to get restaurant and movie info at more than twice the national average.
Higher bills could be ahead as young cell-phone users show the most interest in emerging services. For those age 13-17, about 17 percent say they are somewhat or very likely to subscribe to a live TV service, according to M:Metrics; 13.4 percent of cell users age 18-24 expect to do so. Interest falls sharply for older age groups.
Will young consumers pull back from wireless when they have to pay? Not likely. Cell phones are central to a generation that stays connected at all times to friends, family and the world. “It’s going to be amazing to watch these people grow up,” said Mr. Donovan. “It’s going to be a mix of ruling the world and playing videogames.” Not necessarily in that order.
Bradley Johnson is a reporter with AdAge, a sister publication of RCR Wireless News. Both publications are owned by Crain Communications Inc.
I’ve been beta testing a mobile money solution for a few weeks now from a startup called Obopay, and from what I’ve seen it’s a much smarter solution than what TextPayMe offers, or even what Paypal is offering here.
It’s really all about creating a robust, simple to use solution, and using text messages for mobile payments is not it. The Obopay service I’ve been using has its own little java app that has simple menu commands like “Pay”, “Request Pay” and “Check Balance” “See History” which creates a nice streamlined interface from which to send money around. The difference is like using a Windows or a Macintosh vs. DOS or a Command Line Interface. Having an application makes all of the difference in easy of use and utility.
Combined with a linked debit card I can spend the money in my Obopay account anywhere that MasterCard is accepted, or take money from any ATM instally, as soon as someone sends me money. Also, the Obopay mobile application is perfect for someone like me who often sends medium sized increments of money around to people like my friends and family, but doesn’t require me to use an ATM or hassle with carrying around cash. It’s a lot like the Paypal web service, except you can access it anywhere you are and it doesn’t have any of the clutter, it’s just a simple pay and be paid service for my cell phone.
I’ve already used this service to loan money to my mother-in-law (who is also a beta tester) as well as let my boyfriend pay the check at restaurants while I send him the exact amount for my half of the bill. I can really see this sort of thing revolutionizing the way I handle money, especially if enough people get onboard.
I think that mobile payment services like Obopay’s have a lot of potential to replace a good chunk transactions involving cash. At the very least it’s going to put companies like Western Union out of business (who the heck wants to send money for a ridiculous fee from fixed locations when they can do it from their cell phones for practically nothing?), but I also think it’s going to replace the vast majority of cash transactions since the cell phone is such a ubiquitous platform; literally everyone and their grandmother has a cell phone which is all you need to send/receive money instantly.
Looking ahead, I’m glad I’ll have my Obo phone with me when I go to Europe in a month since I won’t need to freak out about getting emergency cash if I need it, I can just get my parents to send me money and I’ll have it in my account seconds later.
Comment by Deirdre Hancock — March 23, 2006 @ 12:43 am