SMS payments are a means of paying for goods, services or products via a text message sent from a mobile phone.

• SignetPay offers SMS payment solutions to cater the industries involved in micropayment. It is a great alternative payment method for low threshold transactions. SMS payments enable customers of paying for goods, services or products via a text message. By using SMS payments, mobile phone users can securely and quickly pay.
• Fonix is a mobile payments and messaging specialist that enables companies to use direct carrier billing, sms billing and messaging technologies.

They work like standard SMS or Short Messaging Service. With the SMS payment system purchasers send a text message to pay for an item or service. This text message is sent to mobile payment providers. The provider clears the transaction between the purchaser and the vendor. The cost of the purchase is added to the monthly phone bill or deducted from a pre-paid balance by the mobile phone operator. By using SMS payments, mobile phone users can securely, quickly and safely pay merchants, buy goods or services, real or virtual, as well as make deposits or send remittances.

Many businesses are looking at harnessing the power of SMS payments to make life easier for their customers. Using SMS payments people can already buy Coca Cola in Europe, postage stamps or books in Denmark, burgers in Finland, and travel tickets in Tokyo, Paris and Rome.

SMS payments are now also regularly being used by charities as a quick and easy way to get people to donate.

Advantages of SMS Payment Systems

Onebip is a monetization enabler for Digital Merchants and App Developers, to which the company offers the best user experience and most advanced technology. When you want to send a payment link, log in to your account from any connected device. Enter the transaction details. Add the price and the customer information and hit accept to create your invoice and payment link. Choose your channel, be it email, text message or via social media.

For the Customer

• It is quick and easy to use.

• The purchaser doesn’t have to enter in their credit card or bank details, or even have a bank account.

• They don’t need to remember any passwords or user names as with payment sites like PayPal.

• It is more secure as no personal details or account details are released.

For the Business, Charity or Service Provider

• They have instant access to billions of mobile phones equipped with SMS facilities worldwide.

• They have access to millions of customers who don’t have a bank account or credit card and thus were prevented from buying their goods or services before. They now have access to a whole new set of customers.

• They can build upon customer loyalty via SMS marketing message, discounts and coupons.

• They don’t need to verify customers’ identities or worry about chasing payments or cards being denied.

• All the billing is handled by the mobile phone operator.

• It is easy and quite often costs nothing to set up.

The main advantages of the SMS payment system for both customer and business users are that it is quick, easy and safe and SMS payments or text payments are, for those reasons, becoming one of the fastest growing payment methods in the world.

Sms Payments Uk

SMS Payments Are Growing

In fact, a report by I.E. Market Research suggests that the value of mobile payment transactions will double to almost $300 billion in 2012 and be worth almost $1,200 billion in 2014. Another report by Gartner suggests that SMS Payments will represent most of these transactions particularly in Africa, India and Latin America.

Whilst there are other payment options available the mobile wallet such as NFC or Near Field Communication payment options and payment via web applications, the simple fact that even the most basic mobile phone is capable of sending and receiving text messages means that SMS payments are seen by many in the industry to be a major player in future mobile payments.

Source: mobiletransactions.org

A new study shows that 54 percent of European consumers regularly use their mobile device to make payments. The number of consumers making mobile payments has tripled in the past year, as 18 percent used mobile payments to pay for goods and services last year.

That’s the main conclusion from Visa’s 2016 Digital Payments study, for which more than 36,000 online consumers in 19 European countries were surveyed. According to the payments company, consumer adoption of digital payments has shifted dramatically. For example, one year ago 38 percent of consumers said they never used a mobile device to make payments and had no plans to do so. This year, that number has dropped to just 12 percent.

Many mobile payments in developing and developed markets

Sms Payments Uk Ltd

The top ten countries in Europe where mobile payments happen most often can be divided into two categories. There are the developing markets, such as Turkey and Romania, which tend to leapfrog traditional payment methods to adopt new technologies faster, and there are the developed markets, particularly in the Nordics, where new technologies evolve at differing paces.

In the United Kingdom, 74 percent of the consumers surveyed are mobile payments users. And 43 percent of them buy high-value items on a mobile device as well as regular transactions such as paying household bills and bus tickets.

‘Future of digital payments has arrived’

According to the study, consumers in Europe are increasingly using mobile banking. It’s even for the first time that more than half of Europeans in all age groups are using mobile banking. “This data is a confirmation that the future of digital payments has arrived, with consumers across the length and breadth of the UK and Europe embracing a variety of new ways to pay”, says Kevin Jenkins, UK & Ireland Managing Director at Visa.

He added: “In Europe, we’ve recently seen Apple Pay launched in the UK, France and Switzerland, Samsung Pay has launched in Spain and Android Pay in the UK. We’ve also seen a new era of wearable payments: smartwatches, wristbands and even clothing. It’s clear that this trend will continue to accelerate, enabling consumers to choose the connected device that fits with their lifestyle.”

Read more about mobile commerce in Europe.