iVeri, located in South Africa, announced Saturday that they have released a new application that will provide merchants with a new way to accept credit card payments over mobile phones. iVeri, which has been developing new "point of sale solutions" since the early 2000s, expects roll-out of this application to expand through large geographic areas quickly.

Right now, the software is only available on GSM phones (sorry, Sprint and Verizon customers) and runs on the Java platform. This is most likely going to have the most immediate and strong impact in the Asian markets, where using a mobile phone for purposes other than just talking is more prevalent than in the Western world.
Paying for something over your phone is not a new concept (you can even do it on a touch-tone landline phone), but iVeri's application is unique in that it will allow for SMS as a way to process payment, meaning you don't even need to have a GPRS connection. It's also a more secured method for entering your credit card information, by using Triple DES encryption.

More info at iVeri's website.

Report Published by: Mark Raby