Last week, we attended the Global Carrier Billing & Mobile Payments event in Amsterdam on September 19 and 20. It took place at the Novotel City Hotel and hosted 105 attendees, 33 speakers and 47 exhibitors.

Telecoming was one of the sponsors, and Patricia Peiró, our Chief Strategy Officer, participated in two panels to share our insights about the future of DCB industry.

The first one was “Capitalising on the Mobile Payments Opportunity: Markets Growth and Overcoming Challenges”. She had the pleasure to share it with Ross Flynn from the Mobile Ecosystem Forum, Tomáš Marek from O2 Czech Republic; Martin O’Driscoll from CKH Innovations Opportunities Development, DIMOCO Digital, and Chantal Van de Looverbosch, from Telnet.

This session covered topics on the outlook and challenges for mobile network operators, how to develop a comprehensive mobile payments strategy that aligns with ecosystem business objectives, and how to bridge Carrier billing and mobile wallets.

DCB can be a valuable tool for MNOs to increase customer engagement and revenue and provide new and innovative services to customers. Working on increasing the customer awareness is key for the industry.

“At the Global Carrier Billing & Mobile Payments Summit, there was an understanding that each payment user must be approached differently. Getting a full-time gamer to use DCB will be different than for someone who is digitally illiterate. I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with Telecoming and three key operators: Telenet, CKH Innovations Opportunities Development and O2 Czech Republic, all of whom understood the importance of the DCB onboarding process. There is a fine balance between the simplicity of the payment process vs. making sure the end user understands that they are paying.”, Ross Flynn, from Mobile Ecosystem Forum, told us.

During the second day of the event, Patricia shared a panel with Guillermo Escofet from Omdia, Sylviane Gbetibouo-Lee from WorldPay, Martin Schurig from Telefonica Germany, and Claudio Di Padova from Vodafone Germany. Some of the topics on the table were the new opportunities that are emerging for Carrier billing in goods and physical services, the main challenges to fully exploit these opportunities, the natural limits of Carrier billing in goods and physical benefits, and the regulatory developments and business models that market players should pay attention to.

According to Guillermo Escofet, Principal Analyst, Digital Consumer Platforms at Omdia, “direct carrier billing (DCB) has the potential of capturing a small niche of the physical goods and services market, in cases where clicking to charge one’s mobile bill might be the easiest option, such as paying for bus tickets, parking, bike or e-scooter rentals, EV charging, and snacks from a vending machine. But this will only happen in countries where mobile operators and carrier billing aggregators clear the correct legal hurdles.”

“Germany has already taken the necessary steps and made some headway in exploiting DCB’s potential in this market, and France is about to follow suit. DCB can also play a role indirectly as a funding mechanism for topping up mobile wallets in emerging markets, where they are prepaid. So, although mobile wallets will dominate physical-good payments on mobile, DCB might have a supporting role.”, Guillermo Escofet, Omdia.

“The payment landscape is more dynamic today than ever before. Replicating some of the experience that merchants in the physical goods markets see with other payment methods could accelerate Direct Carrier Billing adoption. A global processor like Worldpay in this ecosystem could have a tremendous benefit at all steps of the value chain – Authentication, Authorization, Settlement, and Dispute – as well as maximize the efforts of both the operators and the aggregators.”, as Sylviane Gbetibouo-Lee, from WorldPay, shared with us.

The growth of e-commerce is creating new opportunities for carrier billing. As more people shop online, carrier billing can be a convenient and secure way to purchase goods and services. The growth of subscronomics is another trend to boost DCB. This payment tech can be a convenient way for users to pay for any subscription.

DCB future is bright and full of opportunities… let’s keep rocking!