Mobile Payments

The content industry has created the need for new payment methods over mobile. Credit cards were not designed for the small transactions or "micro-payments" that characterise the mobile content market, which includes ringtones, songs, games and movie clips. The motivation for enabling mobile payments is to make the mobile phone central to the user's life by delivering a wide range of compelling mobile services that are easy to buy.

Instead of replacing the credit card, mobile payments will evolve in two directions: managing transactions for small digital purchases and, in the long term, being integrated with credit cards so that phone users can trigger a larger credit card purchase from their phone. In this way mobile payments will complement, not replace the credit card model.

Additionally the growth of areas such as gaming the sector will require some form of effective payout tool.

Mobile micro payments for people on the move are an excellent method of payment that solve different problems in each area where they are being used. NTT DoCoMo was thought to be a Japanese phenomenon, but the same model is appearing all over the world with the US showing increased demand fuelled by the pull of content and the success of the iTunes model. Developing countries, with less advanced infrastructure, like the Philippines, have adapted mobile payments to meet their need for small top-up increments for pre-paid users and in some countries mobile payments are being used to authenticate payment so that merchants do not have to travel with cash, protecting them from the danger of robbery and fraud.

Micro-payments could reach $30 billion by 2007, from just $2 billion in 2003 but would present a systems challenge, because VisaNet is not designed for these transactions. The Bluewire Network provides an ideal infrastructure for micro-payments, and for the youth markets to be "payment enabled" in both the online and mobile environments.

The Bluewire platform provides a multifunctional payment hub that has a range of branded or white label services that are all applicable to the mobile sector;

• Micro-payment account
• Secure credit and debit card eWallet
• Multiple load mechanisms including credit card processing
• Fraud Screening
• User KYC verification
• Prepaid cards for payouts