Mobile Top-up Market: the Less Discovered Fintech Opportunity in Times of Self-isolation

Topping up your mobile phone: a very necessary service, an everyday on-the-go function that has become even more up to date at those times of social distancing and self-confinement.

Plenty of services, primarily provided by mobile operators themselves in their offices, on their official websites or in their mobile applications, seem to be the most logical way and the first solution on this market. Another evident option very much preferred especially by the Europeans is the automatic payment set up on the bank account. The ones like HSBC or Lloyds even create a special page on their websites dedicated to mobile top-up opportunities these banking institutions provide. Different vouchers, cash machines and terminals like those of Payzone UK are another way of top-us being those requiring payer physical presence.

In recent years, several consolidating international mobile top-up services have appeared. Such services enable payments to dozens of operators all around the world — via the official website or via service’s official application that can be downloaded in digital stores. Thus, the mobile top-up market looks like an already explored field. And yet, you might already report difficulties with topping up someone else’s account. Especially today when one needs to stay on line all the time and when your fourth-age relatives and friends need to be taken care of. Among the most popular and user-friendly mobile top-up international services are:

• MobileRecharge

This reputed service with over 10 years of successful history enables sending mobile credits in over 140 countries in 1 minute only. After a registration on the service's official website, the user can make a top-up using Visa, MasterCard, American Express and PayPal in US, Canadian, Australian dollars, euro and British pounds.

• topUP

A global mobile recharging service where customers can instantly add minutes to prepaid mobile phones from over 400 carriers in 140 different countries. The service launches regional special offers.

• Staxter

This mobile top-up and airtime credit platform from Germany is now expanding its services all around Europe to either top-up their own prepaid mobile phone accounts or credit someone else in real-time in over 150 countries. Staxter also provides an opportunity for gift vouchers.

• Allo (by Monisap)

This French project created by a money transfer system enables simple, fast and convenient recharge of minutes, SMS and Internet balance of a user's personal mobile phone and those of his/her relatives and friends in over 180 countries. Together with Monisap, Allo provides money transfer service with the first transaction being free of charge.

The new level of service

It is yet a question why fintech projects and payment systems are not paying significant attention to the mobile top-up service integration. The only one until now was E-pay, founded in the late nineties in Malaysia. E-pay has been providing top-up services ever since prepaid mobile plans became popular, having expanded to include a host of other e-payment services now expanding out into Asia Pacific.

The European payment digital solution Quppy has recently integrated this option into its mobile application for iOs and Android. Users from all around the world can now top up their mobiles and those of others in over 140 countries. All of this using their multicurrency IBANs supporting euro and British pounds as far as their digital assets managed within the Quppy app. The whole operation takes no more than one minute. The Quppy customer has simply to choose the phone number, the top-up amount and the account he or she wants to pay with.

While mobile operators are struggling for customers, the most convenient way of purchasing their services is still a question every customer faces. It is up to those providers and payment solutions to sort it out together for a better and easier customer experience that consists only in always being able to stay in touch with the whole world. We suggest you should try out those different services and find the right one for your needs and those of your nearest and dearest ones.