Kolja Reiss, managing director at mopay, is highly optimistic about the prospects for direct carrier billing in 2012. In fact, he's predicting world domination, with direct carrier billing becoming 100 percent global this year.
You might say his optimism is expected given his place in the industry. Mopay's core platform enables merchants of virtual, digital and physical goods to bill charges directly to consumers' cell phone and landline accounts. But he freely admits that his wife, a 30-something stay-at-home mother, might be more of an mCommerce fan than even himself.
On Dec. 23, Reiss found himself at Macy's, buying those last-minute gifts (which we assume were for said wife), with a credit card that was rejected – not because he failed to pay, but because the credit card company was replacing – unbeknownst to him until that very day – any cards involved in a security breach at one of his local supermarkets. Problem was, it's a market where he shops often and uses all his major cards. So there he was, holding up the line two days before Christmas, going through card after card and getting rejected.
He finally used an international card that wasn't caught up in the security problem/fix, but it once again reminded him of just how much faith is put into credit cards that are susceptible to fraud. Mobile transactions, while not entirely fraud-free, bring with them some inherent security bonuses, he says.
Mopay released its 2012 industry predictions yesterday, a little later than some other 2012 predictions but that was in part because Reiss wanted to see what kind of handsets were introduced at last week's 2012 International CES. For true mCommerce to happen, the proper, sophisticated handsets need to be there, and he wasn't disappointed.
So, in light of some big security breaches of late (Zappos comes to mind), what's mobile got to offer? For one, it's tough to fake an ID on mobile, and spoofing a phone number isn't enough to complete a transaction, he says. In fact, merchants that mopay works with say fraud has gone down significantly after adding mopay. "This is mind blowing, how little fraud there is," he says, adding most of mopay's merchants sell digital as opposed to physical goods.
Mopay has contracts with hundreds of carriers around the world, so it's well on its way to claiming "mobile domination." Other players in mCommerce, like financial and credit companies, are global, and they expect to work with global direct-carrier billing companies, he says.
"In a couple of years, we'll probably see 2012 as the year of mobile payment for us and our industry," he says. "We're seeing an incredible increase in interest in carrier-based billing solutions."