Audience Monetisation: Hi-Media’s Allopass Authorised by the ACP
- The ACP has granted PI status to the e-payment specialist Allopass, subsidiary of Hi-Media. Allopass has been authorised to provide credit transfer services as well as to issue and acquire payment instruments. The Belgian online media group Hi-Media specialises in online audience monetisation.
- In 2008, its other subsidiary HPME had also been authorised by the Belgian regulator to act as an issuer of e-money (Hi-Pay e-purse). Both entities now strengthen Hi-Media Payments division’s offer for virtual goods vendors. This allows e-merchants from 80 countries to receive recurrent or pay-as-you-go payments, which fall into three categories:
- card and credit transfer, including one-click payment (via Hi-Pay e-purse),
- payment using the telecom network: surcharged SMS, hotline, payment through the operator’s or ISP’s bill (OBeP),
- alternative solutions: prepaid cards, cash, etc.
- Hi-Media Payments processes transactions ranging from 100 to several hundred euros.
- This will help Hi-Media unfold its strategy, consisting in combining mobile uses and the banking system to accompany the sustained growth of the virtual goods market. In Europe and the United States, the e-commerce segment (press articles, blogs, online gambling, video games, social networks, music tracks, job announcements, professional directories) represents 16 billion euros in 2011, and, according to Oliver Wyman, should exceed 25 billion in 2015.
- The group also manages digital ads and develops tools to optimise online customer experience and conversion rates. It is present in nine European countries, as well as in the US and Brazil. In Q1 2011, it processed fifty million transactions for over 150 million euros. Mobile payment and Hi-Pay’s e-purse witnessed a steady progression.
- Rumours as to a possible acquisition by Ingenico have been denied on 30 August.