I was chatting to a colleague this afternoon about the mobile payments industry. He was asking about US players and I mentioned that Textpayme and Obopay came to mind, as well as the huge PayPal Mobile. I sent him a link to the site and also had a look myself. I was surprised to see that the service is live! Where did that come from?! I completely missed the launch!
Check them out: http://www.obopay.com
Now, do you see that little green credit card at the top of the image? That’s got me all excited. You see, when you sign-up for Obopay, you’re sent an Obopay debit card (a Mastercard, it seems) which works directly with your account. WOW!
So, if your friends sends you $100 via Obopay on his mobile… you can immediately go and spend it on a super slap up meal and pay for it with your Obopay debit card. Genius! I can’t wait to get one. What a brilliant addition to the mobile payment service.
Obopay have certainly sat back and thought about the challenges to using mobile payments. It’s all very well being able to send/receive cash via your mobile (by sending a text, for example), but it’s not ACTUALLY that useful there and then, is it? Unless that cash is going right into your bank account. AND you’re wanting to spend that cash via a debit card assigned to that particular bank account. I really like the concept of a real-world debit card that I can use to buy stuff with in the local shop, or online at Amazon.
Case in point: I’ve got a $29 or so sat in my PayPal account at the moment which is comparatively useless to me at the moment. I can’t *do* anything with it that’s useful to me, right now. Yes, I can send some cash to a friend or perhaps I could try and find something to buy-right-now on ebay so I can use up that cash.. or maybe wait until my Napster subscription is due next month — in which case that $29 balance will go toward that.
BUT if I could go and buy a coke or a 6-pack of evian with it at the corner shop.. now you’re talking.
Alas Obopay is only available to US consumers. You need a social security number to sign up. So I’ll have to sit back and lump it here in London for the time being. However, if you’re a US citizen, you’ve no excuse. Go and test it out and qualify for the $10 credit special offer they’re running at the moment.
So bring it on. This looks like an exciting service.
Update: Having a further look I found out that I’m welllllll outttaaaa date .. according to this PDF on their site, Obopay launched the service on March 30! I didn’t see anything about it at all on the web then!