Bokus Eurotrip nets big mobile payment deals

Like a lot of American tourists, Boku headed to Europe this summer but it came away with more then souvenirs. The mobile payments start-up has signed a deal with Telefonica, the huge Spanish communications giant with almost 300 million subscribers, who will use Boku to power its payment API for BlueVia, its global developer program.

The deal comes a week after Boku signed partnerships with French mobile carriers SFR and Bouygues Telecom, which means the company now effectively covers all French mobile users through its existing deal with Orange. Its a nice haul for Boku and it shows the work that the company is doing in impressing operators with its technical prowess, said Ron Hirson, co-founder and senior vice president of marketing for San Francisco-based Boku.

I dont think weve reported how deep our technical platform is, but this is a validation of that, Hirson told me.

The BlueVia deal means that developers looking to deploy increasingly lucrative in-app payments in mobile software titles can tap Bokus carrier-billing payment system for simple purchases. And it means fewer barriers for Telefonica users to make in-app transactions. The system wont, however, work with the iPhone, which doesnt permit outside payment systems. But its a nice win nonetheless for Boku as it looks to expand. It currently operates in 65 countries across 230 carriersand has been competing with Billtomobile and Zong, which is now in the process of being bought by PayPal.

Its still up to merchants and developers to utilize Bokus payment system, which is currently employed by 1,000 merchants. But as Boku expands and nabs significant carrier deals, its better positioning itself as mobile payment explodes. Juniper Research expects mobile payments to grow from $240 billion this year to $670 billion by 2015.

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