Archive for May, 2009

Continuing the series of articles on Payforit, we turn the spotlight to Rory Maguire, Head of Payment Services for 3, and the presentation he gave at aime’s ‘Where is Payforit today?’ seminar.

It’s been said many a time the opening slide is the key to hooking an audience – and putting ‘Warning – my presentation is controversial’ in big letters pretty much did the job in this case.

After a brief overview of Payforit (see part one of this series if you missed Guillaume Peersman’s introduction to the service), Rory explained that 3 feel that the mobile services sector are stuck in a rut. There’s a decline in consumer interest due to the ‘same old’ products being put out there, poor return on investment (ROI) on advertising, low pay-outs to content providers, consumer suspicion over the mobile industry and payment after the whole run of premium SMS subscription, voting and competition ‘scams’ a few years back, regulatory pressure to stop the aforementioned ‘scams’, and to top it all off – we’re in the biggest recession since the 1930′s.

So what does the industry do? Not one to mince his words, Rory said they moan about pay-outs, mislead users by hiding the true nature of subscription services, and spend time complaining the regulator is heavy-handed. And the vicious circle continues.

How can this loop be broken? “What is required is the pricing clarity of Payforit, helping to rebuild the consumers trust by providing them with a safe buying environment. Payforit helps define the good from the bad, but growth is limited on pure handset content. I believe Web Payforit will change the game and open up new opportunities as well as protect consumers, it is a mountain of gold that no one has as yet tapped into”.

Last year Premium SMS payments for web-based content (which Web Payforit is hoping to take over from) were implicated in at least four PhonePayPlus adjudications – totalling many thousands of pounds worth of fines. Rory argued that the way Payforit is set-Payforit up – in terms of security, user authorisation, and control over what the content provider can bill – makes it safer for both on and off-handset payments. The latter – through Web Payforit – would really help online retailers reach 60-70% of the UK population that 3 reckon are ‘e-commerce disadvantaged’ – i.e. no credit or debit card. Rory cited research that in addition to this statistic, 64% of the UK population have both access to the web and a mobile.

So the technology is there, how do the industry get consumers to use – and more importantly – trust it – as a payment method?

Rory said whilst he accepted Payforit promotion was an issue for operators, they do not want to take out billboards and adverts shouting about the initiative and instead would rather let awareness grow through consumer usage, word of mouth and information provided on operator portals and websites. 3 plan to run a ‘Payforit is safe’ promotion on their web and mobile portals in the coming weeks to kick off this process.

Whilst Payforit is very much a UK operator initiative, Rory was asked for his views on rolling it out to 3′s sister companies outside the UK. Guillaume Peersman of Dialogue had earlier revealed that talks were already underway with the Irish operators and regulators to bring Payforit to the country – something that Rory echoed and said had been met with much enthusiasm by content providers,  due to the large amount of mobile scams blighting their mobile industry, so much so that the regulatory bodies became unable to cope and unfortunately all content providers were tarred with the same brush in the eyes of the consumer. 3 have also spoken to their counterparts in Australia, who are pushing the concept for adoption by other operators in the market like Optus, Telstra and Vodafone.

The lack of operator willingness to spend money from Payforit – but still take large chunks of money from payments as a ‘transaction charge’ – was the straw that broke the camels back at this point, with the audience breaking out in what could only be described as a ‘minor shouting match’, with accusations of operators ‘ripping off content providers and consumers’ being shouted from the back of the room. After about 10-15 minutes of shouting – and rather heated debate – the moderator managed to calm the mood in the room and the audience settled down to hear the third speaker of the night – Del Dias from content provider AEI Mobile.

Coming on Monday: Del Dias from content provider AEI Mobile gives his view.