Can carrier billing live up to its true potential?

Carrier billing (CB) has many of the attributes of the ideal payment solution – after all, with more mobile phones in the world than there are people, the reach is near-universal, the only credential the user needs is their mobile number, privacy concerns can be effectively eliminated and, done right, it can be a seamless experience.

Can carrier billing live up to its true potential?

Yet Carrier billing has an oddly low profile in the world of payments.

It tends to be associated with low-value digital transactions like mobile apps, games, and other digital media. And even here, it is often subservient to other payment methods. Is this about to change?

One of the more interesting players in the space is Vienna-based mobile specialist DIMOCO Payments, who believe CB is set for a surge of growth.

Citing a wealth of recent analysis and research, they predict growth rates of +60% annually for some categories of CB payment.

With high mobile penetration rates, near-universal network coverage, and a benign regulatory approach to secure digital payments, DIMOCO Payments also suggest that Europe will be particularly fertile ground for CB.

The company has linked up with MNOs across the region, and a new strategic partnership with Polish sports betting company STS in indicative of its ambitions.

The idea is that, by joining forces and promoting CB’s benefits to merchants, consumers, and MNOs alike, they can establish it as a default payment method among the country’s burgeoning iGaming market.

Then, from here, it can gather wider momentum.

DIMOCO Payments has also worked with the wider MNO community in Germany to extend the use of CB from its digital niche to face-to-face payments in the guise of Zahl einfach per Handyrechnung – a new domestic payments brand, enabled by DIMOCO Payments’ payment licence, for day-to-day purchases that is currently in operation with bike rental centres, vending machines, EV charging stations, public transport, and more.

The view from DIMOCO Payments is that, right now, CB has its niche, and it serves that niche incredibly well.

It excels at facilitating micro transactions and the purchase of digital content, such as mobile apps, games, and impulse purchases. It is in this territory that the +60% annual growth rates are predicted.

And, from this territory, DIMOCO Payments is convinced that CB can conquer adjacent sectors, steadily building more-and-more reach, relevance, and respectability – and finally living up to its potential as a mainstream payment method.