Ren,
Thanks a lot for answering some of my questions, which prompted several new ones!
See comments below after a few *.
Have a nice week end
Cheers,
Fred
1) First, correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me that there are two ways of paying on iMode:
> For micropayments made on official iMode websites (most of the time to buy digital content), the amount of the transaction is aggregated on the NTT DoCoMo phone bill. NTT takes 9% of the amount, the rest going to the content provider.
About 7-10% goes to DoCoMo, but anyway.
> DoCoMo is apparently planning on extending this billing service to all other sites soon.
Not as far as I know.
**** I believe an article was posted on the list about the fact DoCoMo would make public the criterai it uses to qualify official sites, and is in turn considering losening these criteria for fear of government investigation into its current practices. In parallel, DoCoMo would also offer its billing services to more sites.
I also remember another article stated that NTT declined to confirm. Was it NTT final answer? Has there been any further confirmation?
> The second type of payment, provided by third-parties, is used for other types of payments: goods, non-official iMode sites, etc. and is a wire transfer type of payment that goes as follows:
Not necessarily. There are MANY different unofficial payment schemes, for all different kinds of goods/services, including bank transfer, credit card, etc.
**** How would you categorize these methods of payment?
- debit type/stored value/virtual cash accounts (a la MovilPago or PayBox?)
- credit card payments
- bank transfer initiated from the phone
Did I forget any other form of payment?
I am surprised to hear that credit/debit cards are used to pay on i-Mode. Does the user just enter his credit card number on the site? Is there any authentication of any kind on the user (aside form entering the i-Mode password) and merchant sides? Is the message sending the card number encrypted?
> - How do sites set this second option up? What changes do they need to bring on their site?
Depends on which 3rd party billing option is used, and as stated above there are many.
**** Does an unofficial site have to set up an agreement with one or several third party billers to enable payments?
> - Are all the payments/transactions made on official iMode website aggregated on the iMode telephone bill or are some done in another way, involving another payment method (maybe the second I was describing)?
Charges for official sites show up aggregated on the DoCoMo phonebill. All other charges are handled via a separate channel, for example via a credit card company.
***** You mean through a third party processor or an acquirer that handles credit card payments?
Again (see other comment above), i wonder how this online i-Mode credit card payment mechanism differs from a typical Web transaction using a credit card number.
Isn t there a risk of fraud. as is on the Internet with the current prevailing practices?
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Fri Mar 16 09:04:24 2001