Credit card recharge for prepaid airtime

Vodacom`s prepaid cellular subscribers are now able to use their credit cards to recharge their airtime, the network operator announced today (1 June). "It is the first time in the world that a real time transaction service is offered on a mobile phone," said Joan Joffe, group executive (corporate affairs) of Vodacom. The 24 hour a day, seven days a week service was developed with Cointel, who invested more than R4 million in developing multiple fraud controls. "Vodacom conducted market research that showed almost a third of the prepaid customers in the sample have credit cards and would like to use these to pay for airtime. With close on 360 000 prepaid customers this clearly showed a significant demand for a credit card recharge service," Ms Joffe said. "We also expect a strong demand for the service from corporates, where a group of users can be linked to a company`s credit card and recharged simultaneously or individually once a month. Each user within the group will have their own pin and can check their remaining credit at any time," she said. Prepaid users make a free cellphone call to 113. Their personal and Master or Visa credit card details are registered and verified. Customers receive a four digit PIN and then dial 100 every time they want to recharge their airtime. The transaction is authorised by the bank and if sufficient funds are available, the account is recharged. Credit limits will be set and can be increased after additional checks have been done.