The announcement last week that Samsung has integrated with the Bango Payments Platform, unlocking one-click payment in their app store, is important for two reasons. First it confirms that paying for content and services on the mobile phone bill is an essential component of today’s smartphone experience. Secondly, when the world’s largest smartphone maker standardizes on the Bango Payments Platform, it makes clear that the carrier billing market has reached maturity.
Market maturity is vital in payments. Immature markets are unpredictable, complicated to engage with and lack clear leadership. It’s much harder to decide what technology to use and which partner to work with in a young market. Samsung was a pioneer of paid content on smartphones, through a patchwork of “aggregator” suppliers of varying capability and quality. Bango has raised the bar by providing a single global platform for frictionless payment. Adopting the Bango Payments Platform upgrades the entire payment experience for Samsung’s customers, and the content providers selling through Samsung devices.
Bango’s technology provides two certainties that characterise market maturity. First the platform delivers a reliable user experience to everyone making a payment from any device. Secondly it ensures a predictable outcome for the content owner and the device maker. Payment success rates are the highest achievable, any payment problems are clearly communicated and carefully managed, and reporting and settlement is fast and accurate.
Analyst firm Yankee Group commented on the significance of our announcement. Senior Analyst Jordan McKee commented:
“This is a big win for Bango and one that has the potential to be quite impactful for both parties involved. Bango’s direct operator billing (DOB) solution streamlines bumps in the checkout process, enabling frictionless transactions and, inevitably, increased conversions. Moreover, DOB will play an instrumental role in helping Samsung expand its addressable market (by reaching those without payment cards, particularly in emerging markets) and in some instances, lead to larger basket sizes. 451 Research’s 2014 US Consumer Survey, September, shows that of those consumers that paid for a tablet or smartphone app in the last month, 1 in 10 chose to charge it directly to their phone bills”.
People everywhere are excited by the opportunities provided by smartphones and other mobile devices. Our job is to make sure that they are always delighted when they choose to buy something from their device. We, in turn, are delighted that Samsung has joined Amazon, Google, Microsoft, BlackBerry and Mozilla to grow mobile payments through the Bango platform.
31 October 2014 -