The mobile payments race has heated up with the announcement by BOKU of its new Paymo in-app mobile payment service for Android smartphones. Paymo allows developers to easily incorporate an payment API into apps which charges purchases directly to the phone user’s mobile carrier account. These purchases, such as a subscription renewal or new levels in a game, will show up as items on the user’s monthly phone bill.
Paymo even works with prepaid and unlocked phones. It deducts charges from the prepaid balance, and if funds are insufficient the purchase will simply be declined. This opens up a whole new revenue source for app developers, as the Paymo system does not require the purchaser to have a contract or a credit card.
However, there is a potential fly in the ointment: carriers typically charge substantial fees-sometimes as high as 30 percent-as brokers of this type of service. Has BOKU managed to talk the carriers down from this greedy practice? If so it would be an achievement worth celebrating.
Would you use a service like Paymo? Would high carrier fees prevent you from using it?
Check out the video below for a demo of the Paymo service: