mypaper, 4 February 2010 - Cheryl Lim
CONSUMERS can now settle their credit-card and telco bills, and buy movie tickets with their mobile phones, through an application called iNets, launched yesterday by cashless-payment service provider Network For Electronic Transfers (Nets).
For now, 15 service providers, including SingTel, StarHub, United Overseas Bank, Cathay Cineplexes and Singapore Power will accept payments through the new application.
And more players like ticket operator Sistic, insurance companies, airlines, food-delivery and motoring service providers will join its stable of partners in the next few months, Nets said yesterday.
The application has to be downloaded, via a link that Nets sends to a handset after a user texts the word "mobile" to 76387.
The application is free, but the user will have to pay data fees.
The user sets up a password-protected account, which can then be used to pay his bills.
Besides the mobile application, iNets can be accessed at 62 iNets stations islandwide.
The number of stations will be increased to 300 by the end of the year.
Unlike its competitors, DBS Bankowned AXS and SingPost's Selfservice Automated Machines (SAM), iNets lets users register a personal account that can store the account numbers of service providers, as is the case for Internet banking.
Nets chief executive Poh Mui Hoon said yesterday: ''There is still a sizeable number of transactions that are not paid electronically.''
She added that Nets hopes to ''tap a significant portion of this market segment''.
Every year, about 60 million bills are processed through self-service payment machines like AXS.
But this makes up only a third of the total number of bills processed here, with the rest paid in cash, with cheques or through electronic means such as Internet banking.
Consumers my paper spoke to are excited about the new offering. Apple iPhone user Lowena Lim, 22, an air stewardess, said: ''It allows people who are on-the-go and frequent travellers like me to run errands and pay our bills wherever we are.''
SAM offers over 90 payment services, including the payment of fines and bills from telcos, cable and credit-card providers, HDB and the Land Transport Authority.
It also allows users to pay Institute of Technical Education course fees and income tax at 300 machines.
AXS' 640 kiosks offer over 120 payment services.