The Estonian mobile payments company, Fortumo, has launched direct carrier billing with the European mobile operator group, Deutsche Telekom; the first market to be connected to Fortumo’s direct carrier billing platform is the Czech Republic with six million subscribers of T-Mobile.
The partnership aims to enable Fortumo to provide payments to merchants in 12 countries where Deutsche Telekom operates.
According to Fortumo, carrier billing is the third most popular payment method for digital gaming transactions, having grown 11% in 2015 and accounting for 14.4% of all online payments. As smartphone adoption continues to outpace the coverage of bank-based payments, digital merchants are focusing on carrier billing to generate revenue that cannot be collected with other payment methods, the company said in a statement.
Direct carrier billing allows users to make payments over a data connection by confirming purchases with one click on their phone. Payments are processed without any additional information required from the user which provides a significant conversion improvement compared to any other online payment method, the Estonian startup said.
Fortumo’s direct carrier billing platform is used by leading app stores (Google Play, Windows Phone Store), digital media companies (Sony, Hooq, Gaana) and game developers (EA Mobile, Gameloft, Rovio). To enable global carrier billing for these merchants, Fortumo has partnered with more than 350 mobile operators across the world.
The company was founded in 2007 and has offices in Estonia, San Francisco, Beijing, Delhi, Singapore and Hanoi.
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Cover: Fortumo’s Chief Business Officer Gerri Kodres.
