Mobile alliance releases cross operator, cross platform API to enable in-application payments

Barcelona, Spain – 28 February 2012  The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) has today announced the beta launch of its in-application billing Network API with 9 operators: AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, KT, LG U+, Telefonica Group, Telenor Group, Telekom Austria Group, SKT and SMART Communications at the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona, Spain. This solution is an operator billing service that enables customers to pay for digital goods via their operator bill.

WAC’s In App Billing Platform offers developers an easy way to monetise their applications across a range of platforms and technologies, using a cross operator, reliable billing service. This benefits the merchant, who requires just a single contract to enable operator billing for digital goods across many operators. Another benefit of the WAC developed application is near real-time reporting; a WAC developer can implement a pricing change and get almost instant feedback on the impact of the change across operators.

WAC’s In App Billing Platform supports the growing merchant demand for a cross-platform simplified, reliable operator billing solution and offers merchants a more flexible pricing model, with fewer transaction discrepancies when compared to other solutions. For consumers, the WAC In App Billing Platform offers a trusted and easy ‘one-click’ method to pay for digital goods.

Peters Suh, WAC CEO, commented “Today’s announcement is an example of the great work being done by WAC. The nine operators’ integration with the WAC Billing API is an important milestone for collaboration across the industry and we look forward to building on this announcement with other operator and API launches throughout this year.”

John Donovan, Senior Executive Vice President - AT&T Technology and Network Operations and chairman of the WAC’s network API project said “We’re very happy to be working with WAC on the beta trial of this platform.  We adamantly believe that our industry needs a cross-operator solution for authentication, billing and other APIs.  This is an imperative to our industry which requires a focus on speed and execution to enable the benefits of the mobile Internet for more customers.”