AIS moves to become leader in mobile payments

Advanced Info Service (AIS) will launch a new mobile-wallet service for online shopping.

Already the largest mobile operator, the move is aimed at becoming the leader in mobile payments.

The virtual credit card payment service, which AIS claims is the first in Thailand, lets online shoppers pay with their mobiles.

The service is a collaboration between Advanced mPay, the mobile payment arm of AIS, MasterCard Worldwide, Thanachart Bank and 2C2P (Thailand), a provider of e-commerce payment processing services.

Pratthana Leelapanang, AIS’s senior vice-president for digital products and services, said the AIS mPay Mastercard service is designed to capitalise on the growing mobile commerce market.

Virtual credit card payments is accessible on a range of smartphone devices. The service allows users to use their handsets for online payments.

‘‘Our service is ideal for those who don’t want to use credit cards to pay for goods and services online for fear of fraud and security risks,’’ said Mr Pratthana.

To use the service, users can download the mPay application from Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store. They must sign up for an AIS mPay Mastercard credit card with Thanachart Bank as well.

Users will receive 16 digits as their credit card number from the bank that they can use as a virtual credit card to pay online. They can refill the money at the bank’s ATMs.

Mr Pratthana said the the virtual card limits the amount to 30,000 baht per transaction.

The popularity of online shopping has boomed in recent years, with cosmetics, fashion products, shoes and IT gadgets the best sellers.

Piyachart Ratanaprasartporn, the chief executive of 2C2P, the developer of the system, said the service will drive the growth of Thailand’s online consumer commerce by 30-40% this year, up from 20% in the past few years.

Thailand’s online consumer commerce spending was valued at 100 billion baht in 2012.

Mr Pratthana added AIS has 7 million smartphone users out of 40 million subscribers.

‘‘These people are our potential virtualcard customers,’’ he said.

The company’s virtual card can support 100,000 online merchants in the country that accept MasterCard.

Advanced mPay, 2C2P and Thanachart Bank will share revenue from the transaction fee charged by MasterCard.

‘‘The service is expected to double the number of our mPay users to one million within one year,’’ said Mr Pratthana.

Advanced mPay expects to earn transaction fee revenue of 600 million baht this year, up from 400 million last year.