First country comprehensive payment via SMS

Nearly 10 million Belgian mobile phone subscribers will use instant messaging to pay for all goods and services, from pizza to taxi fare.

" No country has developed such a payment system via SMS, " said Banksys director Vincent Roland. " In other countries, people can also pay for soda or parking tickets in this form but in small form and not yet have a good security solution ."

The service is officially launched in mid-May. Users only need a bank account in Belgium and the "alo" to use telecommunications services of Proximus, Mobistar or Base.

The seller or service provider will send a payment request to the customer with a message, the customer will confirm the purchase with a secret code. Both will then receive a transaction confirmation message.

They do not have to pay subscription service fees. Only when there is a transaction, the buyer will pay 0.25 EUR (USD 0.33 - inclusive of value added tax), the seller will pay EUR 0.49 (USD 0.65 - no VAT) for each purchase times. Profits will be divided between Banksys, telecom service providers and banks. This service is only applicable for purchases greater than 6 EUR (7.9 USD).

According to carriers, this system takes 3 years to complete and each company has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. If the system works well in Belgium, Banksys and its parent company Atos will deploy in the UK, France and Italy.