In what looks like the first major blurring between telecommunications companies, credit card networks and banks, a conglomerate of mobile networks is launching a system that may take on credit cards as a way of paying for things, online and off.
Simpay, founded by Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone, along with Telefonica Moviles of Spain, is launching a system that will allow customers to charge things directly to their mobile phone bill.
That's not a new thing but, just as with Visa or Mastercard, with Simpay it will not matter who your bill is from, who the merchant is and who you are connecting through.
This is new: the Simpay network will, it promises, create an international payment system specifically designed for charging things to your mobile bill, whether they are bought online from your phone, on the internet or in a shop.
Mobile phone users have been able to buy things via their handset for a while, either by a premium text message, or by proprietary payment systems such as Vodafone's M-Pay.
In some parts of the world, customers can use their credit card, buy prepaid credits, or charge things from their bank account via their phone in a variety of ways, but none of these systems can talk to each other.
This isomers can only buy from merchants who are signed up with the same payment system as they are -- meaning the merchants and the mobile phone companies have to go through the expensive business of finding each other and joining up their systems before they can start to look for people to sell things to.
Roaming customers are in trouble too: each mobile phone network has to negotiate with each other to support each others' payment system, or not, should people roam abroad. In the worst cases, with every country having three or more networks, the number of deals that need to be done for one company to be able to sell to every potential customer is prohibitive.
It's just too much work for a small ringtone business, for example, to deal with and connect to every mobile payment system in the world.
Simpay will mean they won't have to. As with credit card networks, the merchant only needs to have an account with one of the connected networks, and every customer of every network connected to Simpay will be able to buy things from them, and charge the cost to their mobile bill.
The merchant is guaranteed to get paid, and promptly: something so far not taken for granted.
Jim Wadsworth, Simpay's chief marketing officer, says: "The big difference is that it will be supported by multiple operators in multiple countries. Individual consumers will be able to transact with a much wider range of merchants.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS