Orange has signed a partnership with Fortumo to launch direct carrier billing in 29 markets that the company is operating.
The first country where the payment solution has been launched is Poland where more than 16 million Orange Polska subscribers will be able to make online payments by charging purchases to their mobile phone bill.
According to the World Bank, only 17% of Poles have a credit card, which means online payments are unavailable to most people in the country. At the same time, 41% of Poles already own a smartphone and consume digital content online. SuperDataResearch estimates carrier billing to be the 2nd most popular payment method in Poland (19.4%) after digital wallets for payments in games.
Fortumo’s direct carrier billing platform allows users to make payments over a data connection by confirming purchases with one click on their phone. Payments are processed without any additional information required from the mobile user, which provides a significant conversion improvement compared to any other online payment method.
Łukasz Perzyński, Head of premium rate services agency at Orange Polska
Direct carrier billing eliminates all the imperfections that concerns Premium SMS both for our subscribers and to merchants by providing a convenient, quick and secure method of payment. I deeply believe that in the nearest future we will have a lot of services based on direct carrier billing in Poland.
Gerri Kodres, Chief Business Officer at Fortumo
Fortumo’s platform enables carriers to launch payments across a wide variety of streaming services, app stores, games and social networks, taking away merchant onboarding and integration hassles from the carrier.
