CAMBRIDGE: Bango Plc, the mobile commerce company, has enabled carrier billing for mobile operator SoftBank Corp. on Amazon.co.jp.

Amazon customers with a SoftBank mobile phone account can now pay for goods, membership fees and subscription services, and charge the cost to their mobile phone bill.

To use this payment option, a SoftBank subscriber simply adds carrier billing as a payment option in their Amazon.co.jp account and then purchases can be made from any device, with the cost charged to their phone bill.

Bango now powers carrier billing for Amazon.co.jp across Japan’s three largest operators, adding SoftBank in addition to NTT Docomo and KDDI. With 177M subscriptions (source: Statista 2020) across a population of 130M (source: World Bank), Japan is one of the most highly penetrated mobile markets in the world.

Carrier billing enables customers to make purchases instantly, without the need to enter their card details online. It is a highly effective way to acquire, monetize and engage customers. Bango technology ensures payment reliability, security and customer success.

“Bango technology has ensured that our customers can enjoy a simple and successful way to buy on Amazon.co.jp” said Toshiaki Hirata, Board Director, Senior Vice President & CSO, SB Payment Service Corp., a subsidiary of SoftBank Corp. “We look forward to benefiting from Bango data insights to accelerate the growth of our new business”.

“Japan’s high spending population leads the world in mobile commerce. Charging the cost of goods to the phone bill is a widely adopted payment method, with billions of dollars in online purchases charged to Japanese phone bills,” said Paul Larbey, Bango CEO. “The Bango Platform meets the challenge of delivering carrier billing at scale, ensuring global retailers can provide customers with the convenience and security they want from a payment method”.

App developers, stores and payment providers cross the threshold into the Bango ecosystem to converge, grow and thrive. By bringing businesses together and powering e-commerce with unique data-driven insights, Bango delivers new business opportunities and new dimensions of growth for customers around the world.