Bango plc (AIM: BGO), the mobile payments company headquartered in Cambridge, has announced that in the first half of 2015 it has completed seven mobile payment agreements with mobile network operators across Asia. This includes launching carrier billing routes for Indosat and XL in Indonesia, and Taiwan Star in Taiwan.
These agreements allow the operators to enable a feature in a mobile app store, such as Google Play or the Microsoft Windows Phone Store so that a smartphone user can pay for games, music, movies and other content on their phone bill.
The Bango Payment Platform is used by app stores to operate over 60per cent of all live carrier billing routes worldwide. Asia has been a particularly active market recently, reflecting the huge appetite for smartphones and internet connectivity amongst young consumers in the region. Bango’s partnerships span a whole range of market economies, including Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.
Since every smartphone user has a mobile phone account, this effectively means total payment coverage. The young and dynamic populations of many Asian markets are developing their app, web and entertainment habits primarily through their mobile devices. In parallel, developers are busy in these countries producing games, utilities and all kinds of apps for smartphones. One notable app of the last two years was Flappy Bird, developed in Vietnam for Android and Apple phones.
Commenting on Bango’s continued penetration into Asia’s market, Bango CEO Ray Anderson said:“The smartphone and app phenomenon has been extraordinary across Asia. Bango’s technology is in demand because it gives our operator partners access to the big internet players that drive most end user spending on digital content. In addition to the progress made in Asia already this year, we are working with operators in Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and Japan to deploy the Bango Platform in these markets”.
These launches coincide with a government led trade mission to Asia to highlight the UK’s fast-expanding financial technology sector, notable for its emphasis on SME’s and regional businesses, reflecting the Government’s emphasis in this month’s productivity plan on accelerating its growth and positioning the UK as a global leader.
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