Hello and Happy Friday! News at the tail end of last week from Microsoft’s developer conference that the software giant is adding carrier billing to the payment mechanism for Windows 10 is pretty amazing news. I mean this is Microsoft. Adding carrier billing. For all its new software.
This, in fact, could be the biggest bit of carrier billing news there is. If ever there was an endorsement of it as a payment technology this is it. So Apple gets all the headlines because it is cool – but Microsoft software is used literally all over the world and this use of carrier billing is going to bring the payment tech to potentially billions of people EVERYWHERE.
If ever there was a moment when carrier billing went mass market, this is it.
Charge to mobile, charge to bill, direct operator billing: call it what you like, but the technology is becoming mainstream. Already it is the most popular technology for charging for digital goods in Germany. In the UK, it also has the potential to hit the biggest number of potential users. It is here.
The Microsoft deal will put it now in front of pretty much every consumer on earth as a payment mechanism. Get it right and that means that in a matter of months it will be a recognised, trusted and well used payment tool for digital goods.
So the time to strike out with it to merchants and merchant/promoters (L2s) is now. The seeds need to be sown, using Microsoft as the example, to all the other potential users of this technology. The Germans have done it and many customers in the UK are already either using it or want to use it. The only thing holding them back is that everyone is waiting for a big brand to use it.
Well now one of the biggest brands in the world is going to use it.
So get along to the M-Payments summit – and the UK Telemedia show running alongside it – to meet all those prospective customers and sell them the idea and network with your peers to make the industry accessible and useful to them. Its there now for the taking: the time to act is now.
