INTERVIEW: Neomobile's big payment play

Although not as well known as its counterparts Zong and Boku, Onebip has also made a success of its 'pay by mobile' service for buying online virtual goods.

Customers include Gameforge, Big Point, Playfish, Stardoll, Badoo and Netlog – and Onebip has two million consumer accounts.

Neomobile believes its relationships with operators in key European and LatAm markets will help to bring Onebip to new multi-national merchants.

We asked Gianluca D'Agostino, CEO of Neomobile, to elaborate...

There might have been raised eyebrows when it was Neomobile that bought Onebip. What's the reasoning behind the deal?

We've been speaking to these guys for a long time. They have such a good platform and brand, with real global awareness and great customers. I was in Silicon Valley recently and people there were all aware of Onebip just as they were of Boku and the rest.

I really think the synergies are there for us both. We're already offering operator billing. But what Onebip gives us is the self-provisioning piece that merchants can plug into.

We can't be passive about this space. The fact is, we're targeting all brands now with our mobile services. We have marketing and advertising covered, and we have content for those that want it. Payments is the logical next space for us.

You've worked hard to move away from pure D2C. What proportion of your business is B2B2C now?

It's around 35 per cent. But I prefer to call it mobile commerce.

Give us an example of the kinds of services you can support with your m-commerce play.

Well, we're working with a movie streaming service to offer rentals at five euros each, payable on the mobile bill. The film industry likes it because it's aware of the piracy problems the music industry has and it wants to build services that are easy to use and pay for. With operator billing it makes things simple, and brings in all those consumers that don't have credit cards.

What we've also done is design the user interface and the flow. And we've made the first 20 minutes' viewing free. These are all our innovations, and they've been well-received.

What are the barriers to these kinds of services taking off?

The obvious one is the operator rev shares. But they are changing, I'm glad to say. We're meeting with carriers and bringing the payments closer to 70 per cent. As an established partner, we can do this. It's harder if you're a start up.

But 30 per cent isn't great compared with credit card rates...

True. There are examples of operators going lower. I do think we'll see ten per cent in the medium term on some virtual products.

Can pay by mobile apply to physical goods?

It's an interesting question. Potentially yes. There are lots of goods selling for under 15 euros. But again, we need visionary carriers here. More so than online, because retail margins are so tight.