If Skype did implement a payment API, they would suffer from legal problems. That’s because the process of receiving money deposits that can be exchanged for arbitrary goods and services is called ‘banking’. As you can imagine, there’s a bit of a regulatory barrier to entry into this industry!
At the moment that restricts cellular and VoIP operators to offer only third-party payment for information services directly consumed on the phone or PC. So at the very least the operator needs to be aware of the different regulations in each place, and filter the payment options to suitably approved partners and products.
Companies like Vodafone are busy lobbying to have some of the banking regulations eased for low-value deposits and payments. Skype could be an accidental beneficiary of Vodafone’s lobbying prowess.
In the meantime, all personal communications services will polarize to one of two price points: free and expensive. The middle ground will be untenable as the cost of legal and regulatory compliance is too high, and each service needs to fund its own payment solution.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 01:32 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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True, there are some legal issues, and I'm no lawyer, but I wonder what the position is on transfer of balance?
To me, the situation is ludicrous. The mobile operators, and Skype, clearly hold a balance for you and you are free to use that balance as you wish. If I wish to pay for access to certain entertainment sites (ahem!), I can send a premium rate SMS or I can call a Premium rate number. To all intents and purposes, these are just currency where the exchange rate is cost per minute or SMS.
I favour Premium rate as a first step, but I'd love to get a legal opinion on the balance transfer issue, after all, mobile operators are happily developing services that allow parents to transfer balance to kids prepaid accounts!? What if the kid had to do the washing up for a week to get the extra money on their phone? Sounds like payment for non-phone service to me!
All the same, not sure I'd want to be the test case if I were Skype!