Leena Rao is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school Medill School of journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007 she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney advocacy and community relations in New York. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where it was ... ? Read More
Today, mobile payments company Boku starts directly to the carrier billing agreements with two of the largest mobile operators in France-Bouygues Telecom and SFR, offering more than 32 million Spanish customers to pay for virtual goods and services using their existing wireless service account.
Historically, mobile payments companies are faced with the problem of high carrier rates. Wireless carriers charged about 30% to 40% to process transactions made via the mobile phone that makes it very difficult for mobile payments companies such as Boku to expand beyond virtual goods. These costs are passed to developers who use Boku, which are then passed to the consumer. To avoid these costs, Boku talks direct relationships with carriers in order to possibly avoid these costs. While the companies declined to reveal financial terms of the agreements, Boku said that France levels are the same as talks in United States and Germany.
These transactions provide almost 100% coverage of the Boku French mobile market, which is almost 50 million mobile subscribers in total. Bouygues Telecom and SFR actually start a new service called Internet + Mobile, allowing consumers to buy goods over the Internet and use Boku pay with their mobile phone number. Boku said the purchase process only requires two clicks and gives online merchants access to the full range of price points up to 10 euro.
Direct expanded distribution by establishing carrier relationships serve only to enhance the strength and the demand for mobile payments for a company like Boku and Zong competitor. And Zong was actually acquired by eBay earlier this year for $ 240 million. The company is also eyeing Boku and reported that the company has become a target acquisition for Google and Apple.
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