Mobile tech firm expands to US and Canadian markets

20 Feb 2012

boxPAY co-founders Gavin and Iain McConnon, who are in San Francisco setting up a new office, as BoxPAY targets US and Canadian markets with its mobile billing solution

Fast-growing Irish mobile payments start-up boxPAY has just opened an office in San Francisco, as it targets the US and Canada with its mobile billing services platform.

The mobile payments provider said this morning it has set up its new North American base to manage US and Canada-based web merchants who are looking to use its product to bill in 40-plus countries.

The boxPAY platform itself is suited for online games, virtual goods, social networks, classified sites, premium content and other e-businesses.

Its technology gives merchants the ability to charge customers for digital content through a mobile phone instead of a credit card. The platform can be integrated into a merchant website from a self-service website called boxPAY.com in a process which apparently only takes minutes, according to the start-up’s co-founders Gavin and Iain McConnon.

The duo are in California for the launch of the new office. They are also expanding the new team there.

Gavin McConnon said the move to North America was crucial to boxPAY’s global expansion because of the significant amount of cellular subscribers in Canada and the US.

“We needed to offer our merchants from all over the globe access to these 350m-plus customers, especially because of the fact that mobile users here are comfortable with mobile payments,” he said.

The McConnons said boxPAY would be offering SMS payments in both the US and Canada, as well as direct carrier payments through connections to mobile operators in the US.

Next-up: Asia

Iain McConnon said the company had negotiated “especially favourable” payment terms with connection providers in the US and Canada.

He said the company now has its eye on Asia and hopes to be in more than 60 countries by Q3 2012.

Last September, the company, an Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start-Up, added Denmark, Finland and Poland to its mobile billing platform, as well as Israel and Turkey.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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