Mobile payments for the adult sector

We’ve recently signed up a couple of notable clients from the adult sector. I’m not going to post links here because they are definitely NSFW (not safe for work), but they’re big companies doing big things in the adult sector (I’m trying desperately not to write in innuendos here)

ImpulsePay is actually well placed to support the adult sector. Our Payforit services offer both discreet billing and adult verification and of course the great payout rates.

We have clients across nearly every sector now and Payforit is the ideal payments service for many different digital industries. You can see some ideas of how ImpulsePay can help here.

So you don’t need to be in the adult sector to use Payforit. But if you want us to give you some thing interesting on a regular basis (our payouts obviously), then sign up now.

See you there?

As part of our desire to help drive forward the mobile payments market, and the Payforit sector specifically, we’re going to be busy over the next few weeks at a number of industry events. It would be great to see you at one (or more) of them.

The first is the 160Characters Breakfast Briefing on January 26^th. ImpulsePay is sitting on the mobile payments panel and we’re looking forward to an interesting debate around the issues. This is the second session that 160Characters has run in this format, and by all accounts the first one was a great success.

On February 3^rd, ImpulsePay is sponsoring the Journalism.co.uk event News:rewired. This is a one-day event that will explore a range of issues to do with digital journalism, especially the use of digital and mobile technologies for innovative news production and distribution. As I’m sure you’ll agree, ImpulsePay can certainly help out there.

Finally, for now at least, we will be attending the Paywall Strategies event, held by The Media Briefing. Again this is an event focusing on the publishing sector and we’re expecting another good day.

If you’re planning to be at any of the events, then please do say hi. If you’re not going, why not?

AIME Honours ImpulsePay

We mentioned the AIME Christmas drinks previously, and as promised we went along and had a great night.

There was an unexpected twist however, with AIME deciding to present a one-off award to our very own Chris Newell for all the work he (and the team) have put into updating and improving the Payforit platform in 2011.

Chris gratefully received a bottle of wine and the new M-Commerce book by Paul Skeldon.

As nice as the gifts were (and Paul’s book has even got a case study from ImpulsePay in it), it was the recognition that was better. We have worked hard this year to make Payforit as good as it possibly can be and to take it out to as many people as possible, so it is nice to have that recognised.

However, we’re aware that the work doesn’t stop and we’ll continue our dedication to Payforit in 2012.

Xmas Drinks – see you there?

It’s getting close to the time of year for mince pies and presents and so while we’re staying focused, making sure that we have the best Payforit system possible for our customers, we’ll also be enjoying some of the festive treats as well.

One of those treats for us is always the annual Media & Entertainment Industry Christmas Party  otherwise known as the AIME Xmas drinks.

This year they’re taking place on December 13^th at the Mary Janes Bar in East London. We’ve sponsored these events in the past, but this year IMImobile has stepped up to the plate to take that on – so thank you to those guys.

If you’re around why not sign up and join us for a festive drink, a chat about the industry and a good evening all round?

Better payouts for VAT exempt services

Thanks to ImpulsePay some of you will be able to pay less tax.

Previously all of a mobile payment was liable for VAT – even if the goods or services you were providing were VAT exempt. However, we have worked hard and had many, many (too many) discussions with HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, or the Tax Man) and we can now provide a solution for VAT exempt services.

As part of the development of new screens (http://blog.impulsepay.com/2011/11/introducing-our-new-payforit-payment.html), we've added in a workaround to remove the VAT portion of the payment.

It’s a simple accounting procedure that means that customers won’t see any difference as they are making their payments, but it does mean that if you are VAT exempt you will see a difference in your payout rates!

Without getting too technical, what we actually do is credit back the amount of the purchase and then issue a new invoice for the amount excluding VAT. Obviously no additional transactions have to take place as the credit we do is an accounting one only – we keep hold of the money to pay the new invoice, however it satisfies the VAT rules and that is what matters.

So if you are not registered for VAT (ie under the threshold), or in a VAT-exempt sector, such as publishing or a political party, then your payouts can be higher. Good news all round!

Another great month – thanks!

Well, the figures are in and it looks like October was another month in which we’ve grown – new clients, more transactions processed and the highest ever value of transactions. In fact, this is the 8th month in a row in which we’ve done this.

So thanks to all of you for making that happen.

What we’re finding is that the growth seems to be happening for three main reasons: new clients signing up to the service; new products and services being offered; and an increasing number of consumers using Payforit.

More and more individuals and companies are realising that Payforit is a great way for consumers to pay for good and services. It's quicker and easier for consumers to use and allows many that don’t have a credit card (or don’t have it on them) to purchase your products and services immediately. ImpulsePay also offers great payouts which is another great incentive (more on out payments soon, by the way!)

What we are then finding is that at first many of our customers want to test out the service. Initially Payforit is normally introduced as an additional payment service for just a few of their products and services to see how it works. Of course as it works so well it is used more and more and promoted more heavily within our clients’s offerings.

Finally, consumer confidence in Payforit is continuing to grow. Payforit continues to get fewer complaints than Premium SMS and of course it is just easier to use and interact with. But this is also all part of a virtuous circle – as more and more of you use and promote ImpulsePay’s Payforit service, then more and more consumers will gain more and more confidence about the service.

Of course, this will get even better with our new payment screens. Long may it continue.

And if you’ve not yet signed up and want to see what all the fuss is about, please feel free to get in touch.

Introducing our new Payforit payment screens

Like any technology, Payforit is constantly evolving. ImpulsePay is at the leading edge of this evolution and our hard work over the past year has culminated in a refresh of the ImpulsePay payment screens. Since the introduction of Payforit Version 3 last year, we've had huge amounts of feedback on the payment screens and the payment process behind them. Whilst not perfect, the screens did a good job of informing the customer of exactly what they were paying for, and attempted to reassure users about the Payforit trusted payment mechanism. ImpulsePay has been working behind the scenes to build on this and improve the payment screens, and we're delighted to announce that we've been given the green light to start using them. What do you need to do? There is nothing you need to do to switch to the new payment screens. We're switching a select few clients during November and by December we expect most clients to be using the new screens. We welcome any feedback you may have, we'll also be closely monitoring conversion rates to help you increase your revenue as much as possible. What are the benefits? The benefit to our clients is a newer, fresher look for their customers which results in increased conversions. We've undertaken a lot of research to build the most user friendly screens possible. Removing unnecessary images and links means we've reduced the entire payment screen size to 20kb. This tiny file size ensures that the payment screens load extremely fast. It's this attention to detail that makes the ImpulsePay's new screens so much better than the previous iterations. What do the screens look like? Here is an example of a normal payment using the new screens, you can also check out a live demonstration at ImpulsePay.com: