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Canada Telecoms Launch Mobile Payment Service

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the can-i-request-money-all-day dept.

GregDz11 writes to inform us that Canada's three main wireless companies will be launching a service that allows customers to send, request, and receive money via their mobile phones. "The service, called Zoompass, will be managed by Enstream, a joint venture the three carriers first established in 2005, when it was called Wireless Payment Services, to investigate the potential of mobile commerce. [...] Money can be drawn from an account the user sets up or from their credit card. Each withdrawal will cost 50 cents from the account, or 3.5 per cent of the transaction if from a credit card. (As a result, sending dollar amounts under $15 are actually cheaper to do using a credit card.)"

12 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. mobile is where it's at by stoolpigeon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    some day I'm going to try to explain to my grandkids about how we carried around computers that needed their own bags, that weighed 'pounds!' and they'll laugh at something so absurd.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    1. Re:mobile is where it's at by rs79 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As if there needs to be another way to sink (lots of) money into the black hole that are commercial celphones. I'm still trying to figure out how to actually get Telus' "$15/mo unlimted text messages" to actually only cost $15/mo.

      Android/wifi/skype pls hrrythfckup.

      R
      While my guitar gently weeps.

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
    2. Re:mobile is where it's at by chebucto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bah!

      http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/

      Computers have entered new niches over time, but no format has ever gone out of use. Mainframes are still around, as are minicomputers, workstations, desktops, laptops, and subnotebooks. Even smartphones aren't anything terribly new, being just a combination of PDAs and cell phones.

      Rather, I think people will look back at our time and laugh at us for thinking that portable computers with full-sized keyboards would ever fall out of use :)

      --
      The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
    3. Re:mobile is where it's at by chebucto · · Score: 3, Informative

      Computers still fill up entire rooms!

      In fact, supercomputers seem to be getting bigger:

      http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/rsc.bluegene_2004.html (Blue Gene/L, 2004)

      http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/ccd/literature/ccd_annual_reports/p002.htm (Cray X/MP, 1986)

      --
      The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
    4. Re:mobile is where it's at by snowraver1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I get free voicemail, free caller ID, Free web browsing to partner sites, and 100 text/MMS messages a month free.

      If you call them (*611, free call)and complain that when you start your phone's web browser it goes to their homepage automatically, thus charging you 2 cents, when you really want to get to a 3rd party site. So in effect, a 3rd party site costs 12 cents: 10 for the 3rd party site, plus 2 to view thier homepage. You do not have the ability to change your homepage.

      Ask them to just "block all partner sites". They will tell you that is not possible. Ask them to change your homepage to something else, or just not load anything at all. Agian, they will tell you that is not possible. Tell them that you are "fed up with telus nickel and dimeing you to death and that you *will not hang up until this issue is resolved*. 2 managers later, and I got a nice, permanent, perk.

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    5. Re:mobile is where it's at by mdm-adph · · Score: 3, Informative

      Android/wifi/skype pls hrrythfckup.

      Try Sipdroid on Android. I think you'll find that it solves the problem somewhat nicely. It's not perfect, but then nothing ever is.

      --
      It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  2. Overpriced by Bradmont · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would you pay $.50 to use this when transactions on credit cards and (some) debit cards are free?

    1. Re:Overpriced by Chirs · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're getting hosed.

      I use president's choice financial. Interac usage is free, as is the use of any CIBC bank machine (including the little ones in 7-11 stores). There is still a charge to take out cash from bank machines not owned by CIBC.

  3. 40 cents too much by shking · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they're hoping to take over a significant share of transactions between private individuals (aka "consumers"), they're in for a rude shock. The service is grossly overpriced. Cash is free and most people get a certain number of free cheques / free withdrawls on their bank plans. Ten cents a transaction *might* be cheap enough

    --
    -- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
  4. Trust issues... by greed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm having trouble thinking of an organization I trust less than Canada's telecoms companies to handle my money.

    Has Bell figured out how to deal with incorrect direct payment transactions? When it happened to me, I had to have my bank block all transactions originated from Bell. Bell couldn't figure out how to identify the account making the bad transactions on their own--they actually needed the "payment refused" bounces from the bank. (They've got check-digits on account numbers now, but can they fix a problem from their end yet?)

    A friend on Roger's discovered his phone had been cloned. The Roger's people thought that there was nothing odd about his phone being used in Toronto and in south Florida at the very same time. (The small claims judge did think that was odd.)

  5. mobile wallet by Bradmont · · Score: 5, Funny

    FTA:

    The venture is the first tentative step toward a true mobile wallet

    My wallet has been mobile for years already...

  6. Usual 2 problems: by Seth+Kriticos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. They are too greedy and don't realise that only very few people would use the service at this rates, which effectively ruins the economy of scale calculations.

    2. You can't limit the debt you get, which increases the loss in cases of fraud. This should work like pre paid cards where loss is limited.