If you are still wondering whether to enable carrier billing as a payment method for physical goods or not, think no more and embark on a time travel with Zvezdana Bajic from DIMOCO’s Carrier & Business Development team.

Could you imagine the world without credit cards? And without cash?
Can you imagine paying for your coffee or snack using carrier billing? Maybe not, or rather not yet, but let’s dig into this matter together.  

Money

I don’t know about you, but I love money. “Money makes the world go round” says or rather sings Liza Minnelli. It’s better when you sing it, right? Maybe you even start swaying a little with that “clinking, clanking sound” in your head.

So, what about money?

If I would ask you in which industry you work, or what you do for a living, what would be your answer? It’s a question that you can easily reply, you could say that you work in the telecommunications sector, you’re involved in payment processing, mobile payments, or even carrier billing. But what every answer boils down to – you are making or creating money. For your company, for yourself, for your family.

What is your association to money? How does it make you feel?

Money has been stigmatized for ages. People say that money brings out the bad in people. But the truth is, money just makes you be what you always were. It gives you the freedom to be that someone. And if your true nature is broken, it will certainly bring that sleeping darkness out. But that’s not the fault of money and for many people, it brings out the very best things.

Money back in the day

Close your eyes, I will take you back in time through the history of money. No, wait… You can’t close your eyes, then you will not be able to read. Okay, let’s travel back in time with our eyes wide open. And some dollar signs in them.
Once upon a time, when cavemen and mammoths were still roaming the world, money was not existing. If we knew how to do something ourselves, we would do it and if there was something that we wouldn’t know how to do, we would need to find another person to do it for us. So, we would offer our own skills in return for someone else’s. We would exchange a product that we were able to make for a product we weren’t able to make, but we needed. That’s what we call barter. For example, you know how to make an axe, but you don’t know how to fish. So, you needed to find someone who does know how to fish and at the same time wanted an axe. Done deal. But often it was not very likely that demands and needs matched and that was a problem.

Then, some people, who were ahead of the current at that time, figured out that there are some goods everybody needs, and in that way came up with the first form of prehistoric currency – easily traded goods such as animal skins, salt and weapons. This was working for a while, until some new folks, who were again ahead of the current, started being bored of carrying bulky goods around, so they invented a first version of coins, created from precious metals. These coins had a clear and explicit value so, and for the first time, goods were offered at a clear and initial pricing, as it was known how many coins you would need in return for which good or service.

The transformation of money that silenced all laughter

Imagine the utter dismay and laughter when some of the “avant-garde geniuses” at the time introduced the paper currency. “Ho ho ho (you got that right, it’s a 17^th century Santa Claus laughing), what do they intend to do with that paper, that has no value. Coins from precious metals have the value, paper doesn’t!”. And they laughed even more when the gold standard was abandoned. The same laughter reappeared, when in 1950, Diners Club introduced that piece of plastic called a Credit Card today. When Bank America introduced their BankAmericard, which has since then been renamed to VISA. Or, when American Express introduced their “travel and entertainment” card, today known as… Well, judge yourself.

The world is always belittling and making fun of those who are ahead of their times, failing to see the vision of the innovation. Henry Ford allegedly once said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Would you like a faster horse today?
Or would you let yourself be engaged in vision promising a bright future?

20 years ago, mobile payments, arose in the world of entertainment, as did American Express many years before. At the same time as mobile payments arose, DIMOCO was founded. Well established today, DIMOCO is ready to look towards the future. No matter the laughter of traditionalists, DIMOCO has a vision, a vision of living in a world where mobile payments are no longer an alternative payment method, but rather as common as credit cards.

Are you bored of coins clinking and clanking in your pocket, worn and dirty bank notes, possibly carrying a virus or germs, or an array of credit and debit cards bursting your wallet?
The generation raised on technology and glued to their mobile devices is yearning to pay with these rather than with – in their eyes outdated – payment methods. Not only for online games, but also buy snacks, rent an eScooter, purchase travel insurance, all by a quick transaction on their mobile phone. Again, being ahead of the current.

You might think that the PSD2 directive might make things complicated?

Millennials do not understand or accept that they can’t use their mobile phone for everything, including payment. And millennials don’t just take no for an answer. Being the modern millennial DIMOCO is, we didn’t take the PSD2 as an excuse not to offer mobile payment for physical goods, so we found a way to make it possible. Here’s the secret:

If you, a Mobile Network Operator, are still wondering “to get physical or not to get physical” in 2020, it’s maybe better to ask yourself “do we want to create the future or just be part of the history?”
If it’s the latter, send greetings to the caveman and tell them that their eating habits are in fashion lately since so many people around the world are going all paleo again. And if it’s the former, lets talk and lets not say no but rather YES to the future together. Contact me to make a date with the future of physical goods in the carrier billing world, we have the ticket for that train and your seat is reserved!