Don’t worry, I will write about other stuff soon, but here’s another interesting story about mobile payments.
Crandy is the first independent
company in Europe to be issued with an E-Bank Licence. This allows them
to operate a mobile payment system and believe me, these things aren’t
easy to get hold of. They’re a German operation, though their website
is in English, French, Spanish and Turkish too, which gives an idea of
their ambitions.
Their major success so far has been in Germany, with 200,000 users,
largely driven by word of mouth as the mainstream press seems intent on
ignoring them. What’s also weird is that despite their relative success
and apparently excellent product, I’ve never heard of them until some of
their people left a comment on my blog. Is it just me, or has anyone
else heard of them? Please leave a comment.
Anyway, Crandy allows you to do a number of things with your mobile.
You can transfer money to other Crandy users and top up your prepay
card, from your phone. These are very important services. Partly, as
they drive recruitment of members organically. But partly, as they
cover the time lag between recruiting a member base and having
merchants on board - there’s no point in having a payment method that
you can’t use while everyone waits for merchants to be arrive.
However, increasingly, you’ll be able to use Crandy to pay at vending
machines and parking meters. And to purchase mobile content. They even
allow users cheap phone calls and sms.
So, do they pass Buckley’s First Law of Mobile Payments:
If the transaction process is any more complicated than using a credit card or cash, it will never succeed.
Let’s take, as an example, paying at a vending machine. Here’s what you do:
- You dial or sms the telephone number of the machine
- Select the product you want
- If you have sufficient credit, the machine dispenses it
Yep, I’d say that passes Buckley’s Law.
The operation uses real money ie it’s not deducted from your phone bill.
You have an account, which you can top up - automatically from your
bank account if you wish. So that seems easy to use too.
Oh and it has a Java version.
I’m going to have a deeper look around, but for now, I’d say it has
most of the features of a winner in this space, including being
incredibly cheap (or free) to use, cutting the mobile operator
completely out of the value chain. If it takes off, it’s going to do
real damage to Premium SMS.
One to watch, definitely.
Mobile Payments: Why exactly?
Mobile payments have been hyped as the Next Big Thing for quite a while now. Contenders have come and gone (Paybox, anyone?), but still there is no champion in sight. I’ve been reminded of this by Russell’s post about…
Mobile Payments: Why exactly?
Mobile payments have been hyped as the Next Big Thing for quite a while now. Contenders have come and gone (Paybox, anyone?), but still there is no champion in sight. I’ve been reminded of this by Russell’s post about…
Several other European compaines have also got licenses I’m pretty sure.
How does it differ from the GCash system in the Philippines?
Hypertokyo - well, they’re both mobile payment systems and I’ve written about G Cash before. In this post I was writing about Crandy.
Sorry, not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting again that this is nothing new? Or that you want me to compare the companies? If the former - thanks, I know that and wasn’t suggesting that mobile payments and P2P transactions were new. If the latter, I’m not sure what validity that would have. One’s an independent European service, the other an operator’s own payment system in Asia.
Russell
Sorry, I guess my question wasn’t clear enough .. I was interested if an independent, cross-border mobile payment service would be possible in Asia as well. Does Crandy, like GCash, have retail outlets where the consumer can top up their accounts with cash, or is it a web-only service?
Hypertokyo - yes they do have outlets. Check out their website for more info.
Thanks for commenting.
Russell