UK, Italy Post Offices Going After Mobile Payments

This month the UK Post Office launched a mobile payment system for companies. Dubbed Payout, the system allows companies to send barcodes to mobile phones (or via paper) which can then be scanned at a post-office and converted into cash. The system is aimed at companies sending refunds, cashbacks, promotions and so on, with the essential attraction being that it’s cheaper. “Raising a cheque is 600 per cent more expensive than using Payout,” said Joanna Weston, direct communications executive at Unilever reports ITPro. It can also be used to pay wages for casual workers or people who don’t have a bank account. This is a far cry from a mobile banking system (as Upaid pointed out in an e-mail) because it doesn’t allow people to deposit the payment into their account, nor does it allow them to pay their bills via mobile. However, it does have the benefit of being a lot less complicated and requiring a lot less encryption…and it will work on any phone with a good enough screen.

Meanwhile, Poste Italiana (Italy’s post office), which was reported as considering an MVNO back in March, is targeting the MVNO at customers of its electronic payment cards, reports Forbes. CEO Massimo Sarmi is quoted as saying that the Poste Italiana plans to get 10 percent of the 20 million new mobile users expected to sign up in Italy over the next five years. The proposition of the MVNO is mobile payments, both connecting to the cards and offering micropayments via mobile phones after topping them up with 200 or 500 euro credit.

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