27 Feb 04

Simpay, the mobile payment scheme founded by Orange, Telefónica Móviles, T-Mobile and Vodafone, has launched its first product, which will focus on low value payments under ten euros.

Simpay forecasts that, thanks to the interoperability of its platform, it will enable over 1 billion of extra transactions for the mobile phone industry by 2007. The product will have its technical launch by the end of 2004 and be commercially available in early 2005.

Also announced is the news that Elisa (previously Radiolinja), Mobilkom, Optimus, SFR and TeliaSonera have joined 3, debitel, KPN Mobile group, O2 and TMN in expressing an interest in becoming members of Simpay.

Tim Jones, CEO, Simpay comments, “This is an exciting stage of our company history as we have finished the design stage and have signed off on the technical specification. We are now into the next chapter of the Simpay story - of building the platform and product.”

Jones continues, “We intend to focus initially on under-ten euro on-line mobile payments for digital content. This lower value payment space is a huge opportunity for revenue generation and is yet largely untapped.

Our research amongst consumers and content providers has shown that this is where there is greatest immediate demand, hence our reason for focusing our first release in this space. We believe Simpay will be a catalyst in bringing over 1billion of extra industry transactions by 2007.

These mobile transactions will create significant additional data traffic for Simpay members, whilst consumers will enjoy the ease and security of a single payment system destined to become an industry standard.“

Simpay’s open and interoperable mobile payment solution will further broaden the marketplace for low priced digital content. Currently there is no widely recognised, consolidating brand which informs the consumer that an m-payment (mobile payment) can be made.

Over time Simpay will provide an interoperable payment solution and set the de-facto standard for mobile operators and merchants.

In this first phase the logo will symbolise for consumers an easy, simple and trustworthy way of purchasing goods across the digital world, whether ring-tones, icons, java games or other new types of content.

Consumers will be billed and pay for these via their mobile operator account. In the future Simpay expects to offer products optimised for higher value items like flowers and tickets as well as physical goods and services like car parking and vending machines.

Now that the design of the product and infrastructure has been completed, Simpay and its founders will be formally inviting other operators to join. In 2003 operators such as 3, debitel, KPN Mobile group, O2 and TMN expressed interest in becoming Simpay members.

They have now been joined by Elisa (previously Radiolinja), Mobilkom, Optimus, SFR and TeliaSonera.