Wednesday, 4 April 2012
A one-click online payment system using Facebook and Twitter that could boost Internet sales for newspapers, music vendors and other low-priced goods and services is being tested by a major European media company. The new system, developed by a start-up company in Belgium, means Internet surfers can pay to read a single article or download a piece of music without having to fill out forms or enter their credit card details on the website.
The company, called Paycento, uses the fact that surfers are often logged in any way with their profiles on social networking sites like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. It means that visitors to a website can pay small amounts with a single click, much in the same way that they would click a 'Share' or 'Tweet' button to post an article on their social network profile.
"Those social identity networks also are really identity providers ... so we piggyback on that," Pieter Dubois, the company's 41-year-old founder, said. Dubois, a former IBM executive, set the company up in the middle of last year because he saw a need for easy-to-use online payments. "The payment is really seamless ... so it's like a one click payment on the internet," said Dubois, explaining that it is one click if the authorization procedure is not used.
The system works by a user having an online Paycento account, which they then link to their Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin accounts. "We want to make it economical for the merchant, for the publisher to offer something at any price point, that means both at 10 cents, at 5 cents as at 1 euro," said Dubois.
For its small payments service, online firm PayPal in Britain charges 5 pence plus 5 percent.
