Paymo, the trusted mobile payments network that allows consumers anywhere in the world to buy online and pay with their mobile phone, today announced that former Visa executive Jon Prideaux has joined the company as a senior advisor, responsible for helping the company develop a global standard for payments made through mobile phone accounts.
Paymo, which will launch its service to U.S. consumers in the first quarter of 2009, has developed a payment service that lets anyone with a mobile phone easily make online purchases by charging to their mobile phone rather than a credit or debit card. By using Paymo, online merchants will for the first time the able to generate net new revenue by selling to the billions of people around the world who do not have a credit card.
"Jon Prideaux's tremendous experience developing global payment products will be invaluable to Paymo as we build our global network," said Paul McGuire, CEO and co-founder of Paymo. "Paymo is building the first global payment network that anyone can use, even if they don't have a credit card. We're serious about building a trusted, dependable service that merchants and customers will love, and being able to draw on Jon's expertise will be critically important."
During a 17 year career at Visa, during which Prideaux was responsible for marketing and new products, he helped to design the global business rules for the company and oversaw the development of several Internet-facing products, including the Verified by Visa program for securing Internet transactions. Prideaux will draw on his broad knowledge of the payments industry, to advise Paymo about product development, technology and marketing.
"I have been asked to get involved with many new payment products over the last few years, especially in the mobile space; frankly mostly of them will fail." said Prideaux. "What really excites me about Paymo is the way its high leverage approach gives it a serious opportunity to scale. When I started at Visa in Europe it was a fifty person operation - I think that Paymo has the potential to be the Visa of mobile payments."
Before Visa, Prideaux held a number of technical and sales positions at IBM.
Separately, Paymo, the trusted mobile payments network that allows consumers anywhere in the world to buy online and pay with their mobile phone, today announced that its innovative payments platform is now available in 39 markets around the world, allowing online merchants everywhere to sell to more than 3 billion mobile consumers worldwide.
Merchants located in any county, including the United States, can now accept Paymo in 39 markets around the globe. The company expects to start accepting payments from US consumers early in the first quarter of 2009.
More than 70 percent of the world's online population does not have a credit card, and until now these people have largely been locked out of the online shopping experience. Paymo opens up the world of online commerce to include the more than 3 billion consumers globally who own a mobile phone. With Paymo, users only need to enter their mobile phone number to initiate a transaction and confirm the purchase via a text message. The purchase will be billed directly to their mobile phone.
"In today's challenging global economic environment we can't afford to exclude 70 percent of consumers from participating in the online marketplace," said Paul McGuire, CEO and co-founder of Paymo. "With Paymo, online merchants can open their sites to new consumers and revenue opportunities. Consumers who don't have or who don't want to use their credit cards online, now have a safe and secure way to shop online, without the need for sign-ins, usernames, or passwords."