We offer all available mobile payment options in the Central and Eastern European countries: First of all there is SMS Payment, where digital content is paid via sending or receiving a text message; secondly, we offer Mobile Web Payment, which means one-click-payment directly on the cell phone; thirdly, we provide online payment via mTAN validation. And last but not least, we offer in-app payment for selling upgrades, digital goods and content within applications. Today, Operator payment is undeniably one of the most convenient payment methods on the market. People pay with their mobile phone and get billed later with their monthly invoice from the operator.
In which countries is the DIMOCO Mobile Messaging and Payment Transaction Hub available and what are some of your company’s main partners (MNOs, retailers…)? The DIMOCO hub handles mobile payment transactions in the thirteen Central and Eastern European countries and mobile messaging transactions worldwide. We have established strong and sustainable business relationships with almost 50 mobile network operators in this region including Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, o2, Hutchison and many more.
As a trusted advisor we are interacting between the two main stakeholders of the ecosystem: The Content Provider and the Mobile Operator. We are experts in translating our customer’s needs into the local business environment of the operators and help both parties to successfully tap into the fast growing digital content business.
What are the top five unique selling points for DIMOCO? What parts of your company’s value proposition prove most convincing in bringing customers on board? DIMOCO is specialized in the mobile transaction business. That means that we provide:
1.) 13 countries, 43 mobile network operators over 1 partner: The benefit for companies who work with us is that they can utilize one single connection to our DIMOCO hub in order to reach and monetize 13 countries, 43 mobile network operators and all their 260 mio. subscribers.
2.) Attractive payouts: Our customers benefit from our attractive payouts.
3.) Our competence and our understanding of customer care: On the one hand we provide excellent technical support within our DIMOCO hub, and on the other hand we offer first class, full customer service throughout the entire mobile transaction value chain. This includes handling all commercial and contractual issues. From the first meeting, where we evaluate the mobile payment opportunities together with the customer, to the technical realization – we stand in the forefront of customer care. Customers benefit from our extensive market know-how.
4.) Flexibility and rapid implementation and deployment time: Customers are connected to the hub through a single interface and profit from direct connections to the mobile network operators. We support all mobile operator payment and messaging methods and offer standardized interfaces and streamlined processes – for an easy connection to our hub.
5.) Infrastructure, Service Level Agreements, availability: Our DIMOCO Mobile Messaging and Payment Transaction Hub merges all mobile connections. It is a carrier-grade infrastructure which provides maximum availability, scalability and smooth processing of transactions.
How is integration achieved between DIMOCO, its partner mobile network operators and web content / app content providers? We support different target groups, for example payment providers in the gaming area and content service providers in other sectors. As I have already mentioned, we offer standardized interfaces which we have adopted according to the requirements of the different industries we are supporting. As a result our customers can easily be connected to our DIMOCO hub and can quickly realize their transactions via our network.
Could you provide our readers with some concrete examples – let us call them “success stories” of collaborations between DIMOCO and one / more MNOs and online merchants? What has offering the DIMOCO payment option meant for your retail partners? Our contractual situation doesn’t allow us to speak about success stories or mention company names, but I can tell you about our success story in Austria for example.
To date, gateway billing has only been available on a separate basis; now, the DIMOCO Mobile Messaging and Payment Transactions Hub has been implemented area-wide. Billing digital merchandise – regardless whether mobile content or web content – via the billing gateways is a decided advantage with respect to flexible pricing and service set-up.
Together with the Austrian network operators, DIMOCO provides different payment methods for mobile content or web content to best meet the content providers’ different needs and requirements in these fields. DIMOCO has consistently followed the strategy introduced at the beginning of this year, thereby strengthening its position as a competent and versatile mobile payment operator for digital merchandise provided via cell phones and the web. DIMOCO’s customers include companies in all industries, for example online-media companies, app developers or companies operating in the new and booming fields of virtual merchandise in browser games and social networks.
Moreover, companies connecting to the DIMOCO Hub also benefit from the new billing method in terms of greater price flexibility and trouble-free service setup for their mobile payment transactions.
As the operator of a successful mobile carrier billing service, your company is ideally placed to provide a realistic overview of the state of the m-payments ecosystem in Europe. What are some of its main characteristics and where is it headed?Operator payment is rapidly converting from Premium SMS Services to a flexible and convenient payment method for digital internet goods. This approach is already known under the term “mobile remote payment for digital goods” in contrast to “proximity payment for physical goods”where NFC – Near Field Communication – is expected to be the predominant payment method in the future.
Obviously, for remote payments NFC will not be much of a factor. For the remote usecase, payments through direct operator billing interfaces in combination with user-friendly and secure authorization methods like mobile TAN have already proven to be a very strong and competitive factor. Just take the online gaming industry, where in every region Operator Payment is always among the top three payment methods for browser games, social games and the so called massively multiplayer online games (MMO games) - far ahead of any credit card payments!
Given the fact that the virtual goods business, which is inherent to the online gaming industry already has a global revenue potential of roughly eight billion USD and grows like 30% each year, we are not talking about a niche industry anymore. From a business perspective the digital goods economy and mobile operator payment just perfectly fits together. And as we see other business verticals like the media industry catching up quickly, operator payment will get an additional push towards a widely accepted and embraced payment method. Operator payment is not intending to substitute any other payment method like credit card or cash but rather complements those method with even being a frontrunner in new digital business models like the virtual goods economy.
What are some of your company’s plans for the future? For us it is an ongoing process to expand our mobile transaction payment services - which means developing further mobile billing and payment methods together with the mobile operators, focusing on new markets and new market opportunities for companies and expanding our mobile operator payment network. As an operator of a Mobile Payment and Messaging Transaction Hub we are in the role of a backend provider focusing on giving our customers the best service they can get.
For more than a decade we have been experts for processing payments for subscription services, mainly for mobile content subscriptions. Nowadays we are looking at a fast growing subscription economy expanding in different business fields within the digital goods economy. This is something where we definitely see a wide range of opportunities for leveraging mobile operator payments!
The three main trends in the mobile payments industry that will impact your business (positively or negatively) this year are …Given our position in the eco system from where we interact heavily with content and service providers as well as with mobile operators we have a very good understanding of the needs and concerns of those parties. A lot of content providers are still slow to integrate mobile operator payment because of rather high transaction costs compared to let’s say credit card payments. This is sort of a chicken-egg-situation which we are happy to say has been softened a bit since the mobile operators are adopting their commercials to the new business for internet content. Operators understand that providing tailor-made pricings for content categories help growing business rather than insisting on a fixed share regardless of the content or service.
On the other hand content providers have to understand that the immediate access to the big and powerful customer groups of the operators is huge revenue potential as long as they are providing compelling and rich content services.
As long as the digital content industry keeps as innovative as they were the recent years we see huge potential for mobile operator payments.
Another crucial thing is the technology and the products. If there is something like a payment-experience, it has to be smooth, convenient and rich. Again, with the role we are taking on in the eco system we are constantly consulting and advising both parties for product- and service development. As long as both parties go hand in hand with their business initiatives, operator payment will keep on soaring!
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