The School of Mobile Vol. 2 - The Detail
What are the different types of mPayments technologies in use or in development
There are a number of technologies and solu�ons available that enable payments via the mobile
phone. It is worth no�ng that these technologies are not standardised across markets and many
have had limited commercial applica�on whether it be restricted to a par�cular geographic region
or industry sector. The details below do however outline the scope of mPayment technologies and
how things are expected to progress over the next few years. Only some may be considered relevant
to the travel industry. mPayments include mobile top-ups, person to person (P2P) remi�ances,
mobile bill payments and physical mobile payments using NFC technology. Although interes�ng,
these are not assumed as relevant with respect to a travel company moving from eCommerce to
mCommerce. The most relevant category in terms of mPayment is the Remote Mobile Payment
category from which a mobile device is used to purchase goods or services.
Text and IVR (Interac�ve Voice Response) combined OTA mPayments Solu�ons
A recent mCommerce model which could well be altered and applied in the travel industry is
Amazon’s Text-Buy-It service. This allows customers to check retail prices from their mobile phone
completely through text messaging, which is s�ll as powerful as ever and a great framework upon
which to build more sophis�cated m-commerce offerings as smartphone penetra�on increases.
STEP 1: Text a product name, keyword or number to “AMAZON” which is a shortcode number
STEP 2: Amazon sends back a numbered list of products and prices matching your search
STEP 3: If you find the item you want ‘in stock’ and at a favourable price you can click the number
beside the result to buy
STEP 4: Amazon CALLS YOU BACK with final details of your order
STEP 5: You confirm or cancel your purchase, provide an email address and select a preferred
shipping speed.
(Source: Amazon)
One can fairly easy envisage how such a model could be re-engineered to the needs of the travel
industry. One could easily imagine tex�ng ‘Bahamas’ or ‘Europe’ or somesuch to a travel company
to receive in response a list of travel products with prices that match your search. The logis�cs and
efficiency of this is another ques�on. Furthermore, there is the ability to have someone from the
travel company call the user, confirm the details of the chosen product/service and possibly take
payment, or, run through an automated phone security process including pin numbers via a secured
interac�ve voice response system to allow for payment to be taken via pre-registered details. What
this method does suggest is that it depends on how you implement it, because the central role of a
call centre which incurs costs, may or may not make it financially viable. This method may however
get around some of the hesitancy or reluctance of consumers to pay through mobile as it is not
necessarily perceived as ‘paying through mobile’. This is possibly more of a complex proposi�on
for mul�-part and more expensive travel products but it is nonetheless an intriguing skeleton for
a travel industry model par�cularly given that it is based on mobile messaging, a technology that
almost all mobile users have and are comfortable using on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, almost
all customers will have devices capable of u�lising these services.
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