For online gaming publishers and merchants, the tension between payment security and friction-free payment is a dynamic balance, constantly requiring recalibration as market needs, and new security threats, change. The stronger pole for online retailers is marketing, the side that pulls in the sales, and it loves low-friction payment methods. PayPal understands that. Amazon’s One-Click is the leading exemplar. Even BillMeLater, with its terse data entry requirements, capitalized on low friction payment.
New player (almost literally) KreditFly is bringing a payment solution to online gaming providers that bows to both poles – security and low-friction payments. To make a payment commitment, a player enters their mobile number after having chosen KreditFly as a payment option. KreditFly then sends a 4 digit code via SMS and the user enters that code, along with their email address, into the merchant’s webpage. At that point, the consumer gets to play and has 7 days to pay KreditFly through a card account using a debit, credit or prepaid card. KreditFly offers rewards points that are convertible into the digital currencies of game publishers.
As an account acquisition scheme it’s attractive. And the SMS message should more securely connect the consumer’s payment method to the consumer. The company’s secret sauce must lie in what it knows about the mobile number and in how it, and here’s the tough one, gets the consumer to actually connect the KreditFly account to a payment vehicle.
Of the transaction, KreditFly takes a percentage in the “teens.”
Given the near zero incremental costs of digital content, online publishers must be willing to take the risk of offering its goods for 7 days potentially for free. Or else KreditFly is assuming all of that risk itself. KreditFly could become the way gamers try out games without making a real payment commitment.
I hope there’s strength in that secret sauce and not just wishful thinking.
When users register with KreditFly, those who own credit cards or bank accounts can securely connect their account to these payment options. Those who do not have such options can instead choose to load up their KreditFly account with funds and use it like a debit account by purchasing various prepaid cards that are available at nationwide retail stores (e.g. Walmart, Kroger, Target, 7-Eleven, Walgreens, etc.), or by mailing in cash or money orders directly to KreditFly. Users will soon have other innovative choices, like KreditFly’s PayForMeTM option, which allows users to request one-time payment or recurring allowance from their parents or friends. KreditFly plans to continue adding new and innovative payment methods for its users over time. Regardless of the funding method, each transaction by a registered user is secured with two-factor authentication and takes just seconds to complete by entering a 4-digit code received on the mobile phone and a password established during registration.
Vu Hoang, Co-founder and CFO of Aeria Games (www.aeriagames.com), a partner of KreditFly and leading online game publisher with over 15 million members, asserted that “with KreditFly’s low fees and accessibility to all mobile users, we expect a dramatic increase in conversion of non-paying users to paying users on our site. KreditFly cleverly uses the mobile phone to extend credit to our trusted community, while creating strong accountability and follow-up for payments.”
Read the press release here:
http://feeds.businesswire.com/click.phdo?i=3d6524d5ed91596d18aabace89b6e078