Vodafone customers in Dublin are to be given the opportunity to pay for parking tickets using their mobile phones, in the first live trials of the wireless operator's new micropayment system.
The mPark service, operated in conjunction with Dublin City Council, will allow Vodafone subscribers to use their handsets to pay for on-street parking at designated meters in the Irish capital's city centre. It represents the first deployment of micropayment services to Vodafone customers under the m-pay banner, and is part of a contract announced last December with local next-generation payment vendor Altamedius.
"We are delighted to be part of the first m-pay service, on time and less than 6 months from signing the contract," said Jack McDonnell, director marketing and business development with Altamedius
MPark will be available on a trial basis to Vodafone customers for an initial period through to September 2002. It uses Altamedius' flagship payment intermediation platform iCon, which offers bank-grade payment processing capabilities and eliminates the need for change to installed infrastructure or merchant systems.
Vodafone says it will extend m-pay to cover purchasing of other low value goods and services, via the Internet, WAP and IVR, over the coming months. The move is viewed as a potential threat to bank control of consumer payment flows.