Written by Digital Payments, the company set up by Voca, Retail Decisions and Mi-pay, has just signed its first customer for direct debit funded mobile top-ups – Carphone Warehouse.
Current top up methods such as scratch cards cost operators around 7% of top up revenues. Digital Payment’s method takes that cost down to under 5%.
The win was announced by Marion King, chief executive of Voca (the processing offshoot of BACS) at the Financial Services Club event this evening, as an example of the sort of diversification moves that European automated clearing houses will have to make in the SEPA environment in order to stay afloat. Marion thinks that the next ten years will see the number of ACHs in Europe consolidate to around 3-5 from the 16 or so that currently exist. It seemed clear from her bullish demeanour that she expects Voca to be one of those 3-5 but that hasn’t stopped them from developing new projects that range from mobile payment activities to electronic bill presentment and payment.
The Carphone Warehouse story has just broken at Finextra, a week after Digital Money Forum brought you this scoop. *Apologises, but not too much, for boasting.*