Deutsche Telekom signs up Bango for carrier billing

German carrier Deutsche Telekom has extended its billing capabilities though a partnership with mobile payments and analytics company Bango that will widen access to direct operator billing for app store purchases.

This means users can charge the purchase of applications and content straight to their mobile phone bill via a ‘frictionless one click’ payment system.

The partnership establishes Bango as a strategic partner, powering Deutsche Telekom’s payments across the range of popular app and content stores, including BlackBerry World, Facebook and Mozilla’s Firefox Marketplace in Germany and other European markets to be revealed in the near future.

Deutsche Telekom said operator billing has emerged as the fast path to monetisation for mobile content developers and Bango fulfills a vital strategic role in the app store payments space, connecting an ever-widening group of app stores and operators to one-click operator billing.

Bango has existing global agreements with companies like Telefonica, where direct operator billing is seen as particularly important in developing markets, where penetration of bank accounts and credit cards is low. Trials of direct to bill in Telefónica operating businesses have proven its ability to drive sales, and the enhanced platform will enable app stores to generate higher payment conversion rates, the firm said.