Wednesday, May 7, 2008

SMS-based micropayment service

Idea: SMS-based micropayment service

Problem: Current online payment systems either accept credit cards or online banking. This infrastructure is not geared for handling micro-payments as the setup cost is high. (Setup fees of 8k-30k + transaction charges of 4-7%) Also, users will not be inclined to pay a small amount with credit card.

Possible use cases of Micropayment:
  • Content providers who wish to charge a small sum for their work. eg. Subscribe to movie reviews by Baradwaj Rangan for Rs 10 per month.
  • Subscribe to stock related information for Rs 10 per month.
  • Buy two mp3 tracks from an album for Rs 2 each.
  • Buy virtual gift for your friends on social networking site.

Solution:
  • Name of the service: CoinPay
  • Recharge your cellphone with a certain amount, say Rs 200.
  • You can also buy "talktime" with part of this amount, say Rs. 100.
  • Each merchant will have a code. eg BRChennai
  • You can generate a coupon of Rs 10 for this merchant by sending SMS to CoinPay service. eg. "BRChennai 10". The coupon is received by SMS is "XJKEX42." This coupon expires in 48 hours.
  • Present this coupon to Merchant who will in turn present it to CoinPay.
  • After successful redemption, Merchant's account is credited with the said amount and Customer's account gets debited.
  • CoinPay earns by charging a small percentage of earnings by Merchant.

2 comments:

Dinesh said...

I liked this idea. Very simple to use and effective..
Let;s discuss further during the camp..

SG said...

Yep,

I like it too. How about a presentation?