Mobiles, VMS, Serbia, CEE: Mobile payments provider Upaid has just announced its contract to deploy the Visa Mobile Service (VMS) with Serbian mobile operator Telekom Serbia (MTS).

Serbia now becomes the third market (after Jordan and Morocco) to sign up to this mobile payment service. Compared to other recharge options, e.g. electronic recharge in shops or scratch cards, Visa Mobile Service is claimed to give consumers the freedom to top-up instantly and independently at shops and merchants. After assigning a Visa card to their phone number, mobile phone users can recharge airtime anytime and anywhere, even when abroad, simply by sending a message from the handset.

Similar projects exist on the Serbian market but the potential of this service is much greater, since Visa Mobile Service links eight of its banks across Serbia together with MTS’ 3.7 million customers. Indeed, based on the existing payment infrastructure in use by MTS, the service enables customers to top up their mobile phones via SMS text message which then authorises payment from a Visa debit or credit card.

There are currently 1.8 million Visa card holders in Serbia, with the 2 million mark expected to be reached in 2007, and a large proportion of them will have access to this service. Serbia has 5.2 million mobile phone users, and a population of 7.5 million. The market is therefore promising, as the majority of mobile phones are prepaid within Serbia. Current methods of payment for prepaid mobile phones are scratch cards and electronic recharge - both can be time-consuming and are limited to shop opening hours.

more info: www.corporate.visa.com