Danal Inc.'s BilltoMobile is launching a payment service for e-commerce sites to route payments through the phone bills of more than 200 mobile carriers across 60 countries.
Danal said it is already working with the top three U.S. carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. When shoppers choose to pay for a purchase (typically a virtual item) using BilltoMobile, the charge appears on their next mobile phone bill.
Analysts have said this payment method might be particularly useful to the underbanked.
"The global mobile payments market — and in particular the EU — is still very fragmented, and no one payment company has been able to establish the consistency and clear-cut 'best operations and rates' globally," Jim Greenwell, the San Jose, Calif., company' president and chief executive, said in a press release Thursday.
In January, Verizon Wireless said it began working both with BilltoMobile and Boku Inc. of San Francisco to provide their payment services to its customers.
In November both companies reached a similar deal with AT&T Inc.
