Alex Kinch

A few years ago a handful of operators, aggregators and content providers got together and quietly launched a new payment method called Payforit. Two years on, how has it evolved?

That was the question on everyone’s lips at the aptly named ‘Where is Payforit today?’ seminar, organised by aime (Association for Interactive Media and Entertainment), which took place in London last Thursday. With speakers representing all three sections of the chain (operators, mobile services providers and content providers) – plus the promise of a no holds-barred questions and answers session, I sat poised with my pen and paper and settled in for an interesting evening.

First up was Guillaume Peersman, UK Managing Director of Dialogue Communications – a mobile solutions provider (SMS aggregator to those of us who’ve been around the industry long enough) and one of the leads on the Payforit initiative.

Guillaume first gave us an overview of Payforit. Launched in March 2006, with the first services going live in January 2007, Payforit enables content providers to charge up to £10 to a users post-pay or pre-pay account. Mandated by all the UK operators (apart from Orange, bizarrely) it can handle both one-off and repeat subscription-based charging, and can also be used on the ‘full-fat’ non-mobile web.

Other developments added to the original Payforit specification along the way include one-click charging, charging to broadband dongles, and the ability to charge not just for mobile content but other low value items like CD’s, DVD’s, tickets, etc.

There are issues though. Whilst one operator has opened up a £30 price point, the rest are still stuck at a maximum of £10. Incidentally these price points are fixed – eg 25p, £1, £5 – so you can’t charge for instance £4.99 or £6.34 or any other random figure. Consumer awareness is still quite low – Payforit accounts for around 8-10% of revenue for Dialogue’s customers compared to the traditional Premium SMS mobile charging method. And whilst Payforit is showing some growth, it’s still got a long way to go before it overtakes the established payment methods like credit/debit card and PayPal for low-value items.

So where do Dialogue see Payforit going in the future? Guillaume reckons it will replace premium SMS billing, be adopted outside the UK (Ireland have already shown an interest), see growth from non-mobile content and evolve into a more converged web and mobile purchasing experience.

“We need to get away from Payforit being seen solely as a mobile content buying solution”, he says. “The content market has levelled off and with the launch of web payforit new markets are being  identified, such as e-vouchers, CD’s and books, thus widening it’s appeal and providing the consumer with another payment option using mobile billing, but more importantly reaching those buyers who don’t have bank accounts, credit or debit cards”. He pointed out that whilst premium SMS billing was launched back in 1998 it only really took off in 2002 as a charging method.

With Payforit only two years into it’s evolution, and with a positively cautious attitude towards making sure it isn’t tarnished with the same ’scam and fraud’ brush as premium SMS was a few years back, Guillaume reckons the use of Payforit is set to grow in the coming years.

“At our last Payforit seminar in 2007, I predicted that Payforit would dominate m-payments for some time to come, but that it was by no means the finished product. This prediction has been realised with the introduction of Web Payforit and Single Click, however we still have a way to go in reaching our ultimate goal of making Payforit a consistent and recognisable brand for consumers across all WAP sites.”

Stay tuned for part two, where we’ll tell you what Rory Maguire, 3 UK’s Head of Payment Services, had to say.

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