Bango extends Amazon Japan carrier billing to Prime membership

The AIM-traded firm said Amazon Japan customers with an NTT DOCOMO or KDDI mobile phone account could now pay the Amazon Prime membership fee - either monthly or annually - by charging the cost to their mobile phone bill.

At the same time, students in Japan could now use the new payment method to pay for their annual membership fees to the Prime Student programme.

Bango said adding carrier billing as a payment option increased choice for customers in the country, making it easier to complete purchases.

Selecting the payment method enabled instant purchase completion, without needing to register card details online.

Bango claimed its technology ensured reliability, security and customer success when paying with carrier billing.

“An amazing range of goods and services can now be purchased through the phone bill in Japan,”said Bango CEO Ray Anderson.

“The Bango platform ensures global retailers can offer these customers the trust and transparency they want from a payment method, and can deliver this at scale.”

Bango explained that charging online payments to a phone bill was a “widely-adopted” payment method in Japan, where mobile usage was deeply embedded into business and culture.

The payment method opened up to the purchase of goods on Amazon Japan at the beginning of June through the KDDI and NTT DOCOMO mobile operators, which cover around 75% of all mobile subscribers in Japan.

To use this payment option, a KDDI or NTT DOCOMO user adds carrier billing as a payment option in their Amazon Japan account, after which purchases could be made from their mobile phone with the cost charged to their post-paid phone bill.