Belgium - World’s First To Pay By SMS Text
By Will Park on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 1:06 PM PST In Announcements, Partnerships, Services, Technologies
Yahoo! News is reporting that Belgium is rolling out a “world’s first” service in their payment-via-sms texting service. Those residing in the home of that famous waffle will be able to pay for those waffles (and pizza or taxi rides) by simply texting the retailer. As long as you have a Belgian bank account and wireless service with one of three operators (Proximus, Mobistar and Base), you too will be able to start using this system come May.
People in Finland have been paying for tram and bustickets, parking with SMS for years..
and possibly in a few more years we’ll get to in the US too :\
Which world are they referring to?
Pay-by-text schemes are running successfully from 2003 in Philippines with user numbers in multiple millions. Google G-Cash and Smart for more info.
Similar schemes are widely prevalent in South Korea and Japan as well.
There are also individual instances of such schemes being piloted in multiple EU countries and in India to my knowledge.