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MassHighTech August 18, 2003
Prepaid cell
phone users can fill up at ATMs with BCGI’s Wireless Wallet The letters A-T-M may soon come to represent automatic telephone minutes, since the number of automatic teller machines used to top up prepaid wireless telephones is on the rise. Woburn’s BCGI and ATM operators stand to benefit. Prepaid mobile phones, popular with the credit-challenged and youth markets, are also gaining popularity with people who want control of their wireless phone bills and to avoid billing surprises, says James Anderson, BCGI’s vice president of payment services. Top-ups allow prepaid wireless subscribers to immediately recharge their mobile minutes using debit cards at participating ATMs and to leave with a receipt detailing their air time account balance. According to analyst firm The Tower Group, BCGI is the leading provider of transaction processing for wireless subscriber management, payment, billing and customer relations. Tower Group analyst Edward Kountz published a white paper on wireless top-ups at ATMs last week, calling BCGI the leader in that market as well, while predicting the next year will see major U.S. banks trying mobile top-ups at their ATMs and bringing the new technology mainstream. Calling its service a Wireless Wallet, BCGI is doing business around Massachusetts from ATMs at independent establishments such as the Boston Eagle and Daisy Buchanan’s Taverns. Wireless top-ups can also be found in convenience stores including some 7-Eleven stores, liquor stores, gas stations, Tedeschi Food Shops, golf courses and even an arcade, all located from Acton to Woburn. Anderson says there will be new, unnamed partnerships in the next year, bringing “bigger impact than we’ve had so far,” hinting they’ll include familiar banks. Launched last fall, BCGI’s Wireless Wallet has been deployed at about 250 ATMs, adding to the list of recharge terminals including 40,000 Western Union outlets. Cost is paid by the wireless carriers. ATM owners get a commission and users pay no outright fee. Kountz cites statistics showing 52 percent of the U.S. population as wireless phone users and of those, one in 12 as pre-paying. Since the population of users enrolled in postpaid programs is saturated, Kountz says, wireless carriers are doing what they can to attract the remaining 49 percent of Americans. Meantime, the analyst says banks are looking for ways to beef up ATM business, as prepaid wireless emerges “as a hip tool for the contract adverse” and BCGI ahead of the pack. “(BCGI) is now the overall leader in U.S. ATMs deployed with mobile top- up,” reports Tower’s Kountz. “Overall BCGI is well positioned to carve out a space in this industry. BCGI’s initiatives in this space show the strength that mobile-centric solutions providers can wield in areas of the financial industry as the edges of the financial and telecommunications industries blur.” Anderson reports his company hosts several million prepay customers, most of whom recharge their accounts monthly. As their balance dwindles, users hear warning messages and if they’re on a call when their dime runs out, that call discontinues. The wireless carriers love this, he says, because it means zero chance of bad debt. Prepay phones are available at retailers like Target and WalMart, or users can buy any wireless phone and sign up for a prepay program. While prepaid phones earned an early reputation as featureless, Anderson says that’s all changed. In addition to partnerships with banks, Anderson says BCGI is looking toward technology that’ll allow prepay customers to pay with cash. “It’s
an exciting program,” Anderson said. “Our company is one in
Massachusetts that’s not suffering enormous pain.” |
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