Charity through mobile micropayments

As you might expect, almost every technological development starts in developed countries. Almost. Because one of the latest developments, mobile micropayments, is unheard of in the United States and Europe but is already up and running in developing countries like Kenia and India. In Kenia, for instance, the mobile micropayment service M-Pesa launched in February. M-Pesa allows workers in the capital of Nairobi to transfer small amounts of money to their rural relatives, using their mobile phone. It’s a simple service based on text messaging, the only things needed are a PIN and a national ID number for identification. The receiver can collect the money at any small shop or petrol station nearby that acts as an M-Pesa agent (there are already hundreds around the country). A home address or a banking account is not necessary, which is probably the biggest advantage, because many Africans lack both. Evidently, that is why mobile micropayments aren’t very popular in the US or Europe. Americans and Europeans both have home addresses and banking accounts, on top of that there is a large concentration of banks in the US and EU-countries, which makes micropayments somewhat redundant. Tim Jones, principal of innovation consultancy Innovaro in London says: “It’s unlikely that such a service would have taken off in Europe or the United States, where banking alternatives are already in place. But combine a rarity of banking services with the growing prevalence of cell phones and, much to the surprise of those focused only on developed markets, Africa is leap-frogging ahead of Europe in the area of micropayments”. “Africa is leap-frogging ahead of Europe in the area of micropayments” Meanwhile, the worldwide GSM Association and Mastercard partnered to develop an identical service in India. And Western Union, the dominant player in global remittances, is developing a micropayment service for Latin Americans to transfer money to their home country relatives. Mobile micropayment services skip banking services, which makes money transferring much more accessible for people in developing countries with few banking facilities. It makes banking easier, it stimulates low-income people to manage their funds in a more efficient way without having to open a banking account. Micropaying is helping them to put a safety net under their family, it gives them the ability to build a stable income. Eventually they might be able to start their own business and even grow their income. Mobile micropayment services overcome the problem of few banking facilities and gives underdeveloped countries the possibility to strengthen their economy. An interesting question is: When will charity organizations jump in? Wouldn’t it be great if we could send money through our mobile phone directly to our fellow African entrepreneurs that just have the disadvantage of operating in a tough economy? We could personally stimulate them to succeed! Not just by sending money, we could call them, text them like we do with any other friend or colleague. What could be more satisfying than personally helping someone in need, without an organization or person in between? It’s the ultimate altruistic dream.

This is a guest post by mobile marketeer Peter Evers

txtNation

txtNation Limited provides messaging, content, and billing solutions across mobile and other platforms. It offers mBILL, which allows users to charge for products and services to a customer’s mobile phone; mENABLE that allows billing for site access, ring tones, and online games; mPUSH, which delivers Web-based content to mobile phones; and mCHAT, a solution for enabling mobile-to-mobile SMS chat services. The company also provides mFUSION, a platform for delivering mobile campaigns; and mVERIFY, a payment platform, which enables credit card transactions through Web, WAP, and SMS technology. txtNation offers its products in North America, Europe, Australia, and Africa. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Plymouth, in the United Kingdom with offices in Phoenix, USA.

txtNation takes “Best Mobile Billing Award”

Leading mobile solutions provider txtNation has won a prestigious industry award confirming its place at the pinnacle of mobile and online billing solutions. Over 100 industry leaders, including Vodafone and Microsoft, recently attended the annual Mobile Advertising and Marketing Awards (MAMA) at London’s Charing Cross Hotel.

The award celebrates best of breed providers in the mobile and online sectors, identifying those companies who have demonstrated sustained innovation and ease-of-use. The fight for top place was fierce, but txtNation won out on the back of its recently-launched mENABLE Widget product, a streamlined e-commerce application offering robust SMS, phone and credit card billing.
Michael Whelan and Jon Rowsell, txtNation’s founders, were present to collect the award. Rowsell comments that ‘txtNation is honoured to win, especially given the strong competition. Our investments in our clients empower them with tools to receive online mobile micro-payments in a flash. The Widget consolidates the best of what we do.’

Whelan adds that it was ‘a memorable moment’ to be collecting the award. ‘The whole event was a great success and a fantastic networking opportunity. We’re proud of what we have achieved.’

Ashley Cross, txtNation’s COO and project manager for the new product, points out that despite the early success of the Widget there is still much to come, promising further innovation and an on-going improvement program to ensure that the Widget stays at the top of its game.

Mobile is a multibillion dollar industry and consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile phones to communicate and to consume. txtNation provides messaging, content, and billing solutions to businesses keen to take advantage of this fast-paced and highly lucrative industry.

It offers mBILL, which allows users to charge for products and services to a customer’s mobile phone, mENABLE that allows billing for site access, ring tones, and online games; mPUSH, which delivers Web-based content to mobile phones; and mFUSION, a platform for delivering state-of-the-art mobile campaigns. txtNation offers its products in North America, Europe, Australia, and Africa.
About txtNation
txtNation is an outstanding multi award-winning solutions provider across billing, content and mobile messaging platforms. Focussing on sophisticated, ease-of-use solutions designed and supported by knowledgeable technical and customer support teams, txtNation have consistently proved itself one of the most efficient and cost effective messaging, billing and content providers in the business. txtNation’s global reach means that we can facilitate mobile messaging services and products via the SMS Gateway across North America, Europe, Australia and Africa. txtNation have developed strong partnerships with many major industry leaders to ensure our solutions are compatible, well-connected and adequately secure. txtNation have well over 7000 clients large and small on every continent who are already experiencing the outstanding advantages which txtNation has to offer. txtNation’s products and services increase customer acquisition, improve loyalty and build trusted brands and awareness through direct, personal, easy, and immediate communications.

Subscribe to the txtNation newsletter: http://txtnation.com/newsletter.php.

Premium SMS – An Excellent Billing Alternative for iGaming.

Mobile Consultant, Jacques LeDisco, looks into Premium SMS as an iGaming billing alternative.

Financial Instruments
Most iGaming sites accept major currencies such as US dollars or Euros. Deposit and withdrawal methods include credit cards, wire transfer, Neteller, instant check deposit and Money Gram.
Europeans prefer direct debits over credit cards as a method of payment. Direct debits can be processed as a Debit Order or Collection Authorization. With a Debit Order, the account holder gives his bank a written authorization for a specified payee to deduct funds from the account.
A Collection Authorization gives a selected recipient written authorization to withdraw funds for a specific purpose from the account. Reliance on processing transactions with traditional financial instruments has precluded the industry from the opportunity to generate a major source of potential gaming revenue:
According to GlobalAdultBilling.com, 65% of the world does not use credit cards.
In addition, many people are concerned about the possibility of charges for erotic or gaming services appearing on their credit card statement or simply have security concerns about submitting card details over the Internet.

Premium SMSfor 2 Billion Mobiles
While the majority of the world either doesn’t use credit cards, or doesn’t have a bank account (even in the USA, 1 in 12 adults do not have a bank account), there are over 2 billion mobiles. Currently, Premium SMS is used to bill mobile subscribers for services such as chat, dating, downloads of wallpapers and ringtones; and for micro-billing.

Micro-billing allows users to pay for third party SMS, WAP and WEB content by sending an SMS to a short code and in return receives either the content directly (for immediate SMS content), or a pass code to log into the WAP or WEB site where the desired content resides. SMS micro-billing has a number of advantages over credit card and premium-rate voice billing:

- It can handle small payment amounts.
– Almost anonymous payment processing (only the mobile phone number is known to the content provider).
– Widely available to mobile subscribers worldwide.

In Europe, establishing a viable payment model for mobile gambling is proving difficult – especially in countries with large numbers of pre-paid customers where the cost of a download or a bet can be the whole value of a top-up card. Ate Online notes that in Italy, 85% of customers are pre-paid, with 82% in Portugal, 47% in France and 50% in Germany. In addition, even pre-paid phones are often configured to decline adult and gambling transactions, so the available customer base is seriously reduced.
The reality is that gaming and gambling developers are very much at the mercy of operator billing systems. According to Stephen Carl of Vodafone’s Global Charging and Payment division, “Right now there is a theoretical £5 transaction threshold on WAP transactions for gambling and gaming for both post and pre-paid.” This is not a technological limitation, but a regulatory issue. Operators also feel constrained by the European Union’s e-cash directive – known in the UK as the Financial Services and Markets Act 2002. This directive states that if the value of the purchase is not downloaded to the handset as content, it will require the billing agent to have a banking license, and Financial Services regulation1. In order to subscribe to a gambling service using Premium SMS payment, your mobile service provider may require you to disable the “adult content filter” that is installed on some handsets. Also, socially responsible mobile sportsbooks require disclosure of age verification details that can be checked against public records.

Case Study: txtNation
txtNation is a solutions provider across billing, content and mobile messaging platforms .
Focusing on sophisticated, “plug and play” solutions designed and supported by knowledgeable technical and customer support teams, txtNation has proved itself to be one of the most efficient and cost effective messaging, billing and content providers in the business. With a global reach, and strong partnerships, txtNation can facilitate mobile messaging services and products across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. The company currently serves over 7,000 clients, large and small.

mBILL
mBILL allows clients to sell products and services through mobile devices. The worldwide txtNation platform can bill Premium SMS in over 40 countries, handling mobile transaction security, telecom protocols and regulatory compliance requirements. Premium SMS solutions charged through mBILL offers the option of either using a cost-effective shared short code or the brand flexibility of a dedicated short code tailored to client specifications. This integrated platform can be deployed as a “plug and play” solution within an existing ecommerce system.

An iGaming client would use mBILL in the following scenario:

-User texts/SMS in to deposit funds/place bet.
-User receives confirmation on purchase.
-You can choose from $0.50 to $10.00 typically per message per country.
-Each country has its own rules on billing amounts and what companies can and cannot bill for (payouts also typically differ per country).
-APIs connect to sites/services to enable this transaction and payout to occur.
-Some offer a full pay model, where the user payouts are higher for the opportunity to use their mobile. -Some offer less credits based on mobile purchases.

There are many options. From premium and non-Premium SMS, one-way billing, to billing through an automated phone call.

mBILLin ASIA
Asian customers have regional characteristics, including different patterns of betting, product preferences and account settlement practices.
A large portion of this market does not have credit/debit cards, or in some cases, bank accounts. Trust and brand loyalty are the keys to success in this controlled and regulated environment . In addition, in many developing nations, mobiles outnumber fixed landlines. While many Western casino operators do not have direct relationships with clients in Asia, mBILL has contracts with China Mobile and China Unicom to connect clients to over 425 million mobile phone users in China, the fastest growing economy in the world and home to the so-called “Second Industrial Revolution”. China has 416.64 million subscribers (31.7% penetration) and two main networks. With a massive mobile user base and huge potential for growth, it is equally home to a massive digital revolution.

mBILLin Latin America
Post UIGEA, many gaming companies have begun to aggressively establish a presence in Latin America. However, this region has low levels of credit card penetration and few alternative payment solutions.
In addition, many payment processors and banks will not work with gaming operators if they lack local licenses, which is a lengthy, cumbersome process to obtain.
In Central and South America, increasing numbers of players are using their mobile phones to purchase their lottery tickets in state-run sweepstakes.
Interoperability issues between wireless networks in South America have prevented companies in this market from realizing the scale of SMS revenues being generated by their counterparts in Europe, where many countries have begun deriving a significant share of their national telecom revenue from the one billion-plus SMS messages sent monthly.
Ignacio Aguero, general director at Argentinean sportsbetting operator, Formoapuestas, noted, “Payments methods are important in this respect. In South America, people do not like to put their credit cards over the Internet. After you have created the culture where people want to gamble, you have to enable them to. You have to give them the right tools to do it securely and easily ”.
txtNation has established connectivity with local language support into the networks of South America, enabling txtNation clients to deliver micro-payments for Web-Based Access (mENABLE), content services (MPUSH) and a wide variety of other SMS revenues from text messaging across Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Brazil will be added to the network later in 2009.
Currently, txtNation delivers both one and two-way SMS services for clients across all major network standards in the Americas, including GSM, TDMA and CDMA.

SMSPayment Solution
Thus, Premium SMS is an affordable solution for increasing a gaming operator’s global customer acquisition, improving loyalty and establishing trusted brands and awareness through direct, personal, accessible and immediate communications.

Jacques LeDisco is an independent mobile gambling marketing consultant. He has published market research reports on gambling, and currently, manages mobile marketing campaigns for gambling clients on PPC sites and through bulk SMS. He can be reached at http://tagtag.com/mBILL.
© 2009
Email: j.ledisco@txtnation.com

UK Operators Drop Processing Fees for Charity Premium Text Messages

­The UK’s main mobile network operators, 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin and Vodafone have jointly agreed to waive their processing charges for premium SMS messages – when used by the Red Nose Day charity appeal.

The mobile industry have agreed to waive their usual charges to ensure a £1 or £5 text means a £1 or £5 donation to Comic Relief, and HM Treasury has confirmed that because of this no VAT (sales tax) will be charged on these donations.

Emma Freud, Trustee of Comic Relief, said: “The spirit of the entire mobile industry has taken our breath away. We believe receiving every penny from texts donated by the public will make the most remarkable difference – helping us to transform and save literally thousands of lives. An astonishing £190,000 was donated via the £1 text donation line on the first day it opened on Radio 1, and in that week it raised nearly £800,000. We have high hopes for the £5 text line on Red Nose Day.”

Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Timms, said: “The Government is fully behind the very important work of Comic Relief. That’s why I’m delighted to confirm that no VAT will be charged on donations, so every penny donated will go straight to Comic Relief.”

Ref:  www.cellular-news.com

SMS Billing in 2009

SMS Billing, often known as Premium SMS (PSMS), is the most widely used mobile payment and mobile billing mechanism. Its continuing growth and market acceptance is not slowing down either, with an increasing number of consumers purchasing content and services via their mobile phones on a daily basis.

txtNation’s PSMS Billing services let you take advantage of this growing trend in mobile billing.  Our easy to use applications allow you to quickly generating revenue by selling a range of content and mobile services to your consumers.

Just some of the benefits to using PSMS are listed below:

• PSMS offers Convenience and anonymity, which make it an attractive payment option to consumers.
• PSMS simplifies one-off purchasing and ordering short-term or bulk subscription-based mobile services
• PSMS a Fast revenue generation, resulting in the availability of funds to reinvest in your business
• Access to consumers who do not have access to debit/credit cards.

For more information on SMS billing and txtNation’s services please visit www.m-bill.net

Over 1.5 Billion SMSs being Processed Worldwide

Messaging interconnection firms, have announced a record number of off-portal transactions for 2008, processing over 1.5 billion “application-to-person” transactions worldwide.  2008 was the fifth consecutive year of high growth for this market.

In the USA, the number of premium SMS transactions processed increased 100% over 2007.

It’s expected that we will see further growth in the market during 2009 as enterprises will start to fully embrace the mobile messaging medium.

Setup up a Ringtone Club!

A ringtone club is an entertainment service for cell phone users that enables them to personalize their handset on a regular basis. Cell phone users are able to download their choice of the very latest music releases as a great sounding ringtone. Cell phone personalization is currently a fast growing trend among people of all ages. Ringtones are by far the most popular content type. A ringtone club is an opt-in subscription premium sms service that makes regular scheduled broadcasts of the latest ringtones to the subscriber base.

A cell phone user can subscribe to a ringtone club in one of two ways:

a) By sending a text message from their handset containing a “keyword” to a premium rate shortcode.

b) By visiting a web page that enables them to subscribe to the ringtone club by entering in required information such as cell number and provider.

Subscribers to a ringtone club are sent a weekly message to their handset containing a number of the latest ringtones. The subscriber then selects the ringtone they wish to download and saves it in the phones memory.

txtNation has developed a complete solution that allows companies to implement their own Ringtone Club. txtNation has taken care of all components for this campaign using our content delivery application.

We are able to offer you everything to generate revenue from cell phone entertainment, from concept, creation, delivery, billing, technology, analysis and customer service. Our team is dedicated to creating a campaign that works for you.

If you are thinking of entering the cell entertainment market this is the product you need. It is quick to market, easy to manage and the most popular form of cell entertainment.

The Ringtones

Use txtNation. txtNation has a database of over 40,000 ringtones covering every genre from Rock to Pop, Classical to Country. The ringtone club can be set up with any number of ringtones from a long list of genres, and is tailored to the target audience’s musical taste.

This vast range thus enables a country music radio station to offer a country music ringtone club to their audience, and a high traffic urban website to offer a hiphop/rap music ringtone club.

SMS Chat in the US

Premium SMS (PSMS) “Chat” services are currently allowed in the USA via txtNation. Most major US Carriers support “Chat” services except Verizon Wireless. In “Premium SMS Chat” services, a user must be invited to join a Chat service. This includes but is not limited to Operator, Peer2Peer, Operator Moderated Group chat interaction. “Chat” is inclusive of services such as tarot card readings, astrology, special interests. Explicit language, adult chat is currently not approved. The following must be taken into consideration for Chat services:

• Monthly subscription or per message billing are the only valid billing options. Some Carriers support both or only one
• There is maximum allowable rate of a single billing event depending on Carrier
• There is maximum allowable charges for a sinbgle chat service in a monthly period
• Notification of accumulated chages must be sent in increments of $25.00 or month. This message should apply disclosure to user they have accumulated $25.00 (or relevant derivatitve) along with relevant opt-out information and HELP command
• The end user must be notified and must opt-in for every $25 in premium
  charges that they incur. These additional “continuation” messages must:
  o Express dollar amounts reached, not the number of messages billed
  o Present cumulative premium charge dollar amounts (up to the limit of
  $75.00). For example $25, $50, $75
  o Tally charges based on the anniversary date of initial sign up.
  Example: user signs up for service on Jan 12th, 2006 all months will
  end on the 12th of each month
  o If the end user does not reply affirmatively to continuation message
  the system must pause the chat service until the anniversary date.
  o No further MT’s can be sent to a end user until affirmative response
  to continuation message is provided by the end user. If the end user
  does not attempt to chat, no additional messages may be sent. The
  chat participant must be considered in a PAUSED status
  o HELP and OPT OUT keywords must be included in the continuation
  message
  o Suggested keywords are the same as the opt-in keywords defined
  above. In addition, MORE or CONTINUE should be supported as reopt-
  in words
  o Regardless of status (Paused or Active), the end user must be able to
  opt-out of the program at any time
• While the end user is in PAUSED status, end user cannot incur any further premium messaging charges
• Service Providers are strictly prohibited from queuing messages that are
  attempted to be sent to a PAUSED end user and transmitting them to the
  user later
• Double opt-in is required; first MT must disclose pricing, opt-out information,
  message frequency and user MUST respond with YES to complete activation
• Premium for “registration” messages are NOT allowable. All messages related
  to registration, establishing a profile, etc. must be standard rated
• MT can only be sent as a response to an MO from User
• Operator chat applications CANNOT “self-generate” MT’s
• IVR and Voice Chat are NOT allowable; SMS Chat applications cannot advertise IVR or Voice Chat services nor can they initiate/facilitate voice conversation between two users (user includes “Operator”)
• End users must be opted-out after 60 days of inactivity. An informational
  message informing the end user of the automatic opt-out may be sent
• Chat participants must have the ability to report and block members

Please refer to the txtNation USA Carrier Guidelines for specific Carrier regulations for “Chat” services.

Learn more at mBILL. www.m-bill.net.

Premium SMS Explained

Mobile terminated short messages can be used to deliver digital content such as news alerts, financial information, logos and ring tones. The Value-added service provider (VASP) providing the content submits the message to the mobile operator’s SMSC(s) using a TCP/IP protocol such as the short message peer-to-peer protocol (SMPP) or the External Machine Interface (EMI). The SMSC delivers the text using the normal Mobile Terminated delivery procedure. The subscribers are charged extra for receiving this premium content, and the amount is typically divided between the mobile network operator and the VASP either through revenue share or a fixed transport fee.

Mobile originated short messages may also be used in a premium-rated manner for services such as televoting. In this case, the VASP providing the service obtains a Short Code from the telephone network operator, and subscribers send texts to that number. The payouts to the carriers vary by carrier and the percentages paid are greatest on the lowest priced premium SMS services. Most information providers should expect to pay about 45% of the cost of the premium SMS up front to the carrier. The submission of the text to the SMSC is identical to a standard MO Short Message submission, but once the text is at the SMSC, the Service Centre identifies the Short Code as a premium service psms. The SC will then direct the content of the text message to the VASP, typically using an IP protocol such as SMPP or EMI. Subscribers are charged a premium for the sending of such messages, with the revenue typically shared between the network operator and the VASP. Limitations of short codes include the limitation to national borders (short codes have to be activated in each country where the campaign takes place), as well as being expensive to sign up together with mobile operators.

Using PSMS as a payment system

Why is Premium SMS considered the choice for many webmasters!?

If personal information is not collected and stored online, it cannot be subject to online theft and fraud.

• No input of financial information
• No storage of financial information
• Nothing to hack, nothing to steal