Belgacom moves into payments by SMS
Belgacom, the former state-owned telecommunications company, is to cooperate with Delhaize, Accor and Coca Cola to launch a new service allowing micro-payments by mobile phone. Belgacom last week announced it was taking a 40% stake in Tunz, a specialist in mobile payments. It has also launched its own brand, PingPing, which will allow subscribers on any mobile phone network to keep an account for mobile phone payments.
Telecoms giant launches new brand PingPing
Belgacom already operates a ticketing service in Antwerp and Ghent with De Lijn, which allows Proximus subscribers to pay for bus tickets by SMS. Around 1,000 tickets are paid for by SMS every day. In addition, Proximus operates SMS parking payment systems in Antwerp, Bruges, Hasselt, Tienen, Leuven, Schaarbeek, Lokeren, Wetteren, Turnhout and Diest. Last year 1.3 million transactions were carried out, while the company expects the number to exceed 2 million this year.
Tunz offered a sort of “electronic wallet” which allowed subscribers to pay each other by SMS, after charging their accounts online. The company holds a Europe-wide licence, which was one of the features that convinced Belgacom to buy a 40% stake.
Belgacom is also working on a system to allow the transfer of money from one country to another by mobile phone. “We believe in innovation,” said Belgacom CEO Didier Bellens. “In our view, these are the services of the future. Two-thirds of our turnover now comes from services that didn’t even exist 15 years ago.”
The PingPing service involves a chip contained in a sticker attached to the back of the customer’s mobile phone which would then communicate with the payment technology at point of sale. The service would be open to subscribers of any mobile phone network.
Bellens hopes to launch at least some of the PingPing services by the end of the year. “In principle, mobile payments could cover all sorts of small payments which still use cash,” he said.
PingPing takes off
At a press conference last week, Didier Bellens said that agreements had been reached on micro-payment projects involving three companies:
• Accor Services, which operates the Ticket Restaurant meal-voucher system. It will switch to contactless vouchers for employees of Belgacom itself, as well as several other companies based close to the telecommunications company’s headquarters next to Brussels North station. The project would allow companies to credit employees’ PingPing accounts with contactless luncheon vouchers, which could then be used in restaurants or shops where contactless payments were also possible. Readers will be installed in the Belgacom company restaurant, and 500 employees each of Belgacom and Accor will be given PingPing chips.
• Supermarket chain Delhaize will equip cash registers in one of its city stores, the City Manhattan, near North station, with PingPing readers, allowing customers to pay for their shopping with their PingPing account or with contactless Ticket Restaurant credits.
• Drinks dispensing machines operated by the Coca Cola Company will be fitted with PingPing technology to take payments by mobile phone.
