For years in Finland, there has been a way to pay for stuff with your mobile phone. That is, if you a) find yourself cash-strapped at one of the nine (count ‘em – 9) merchants and b) if you happen to be one of the approximately seven subscribers that at some point signed up for the service.
Unsurprisingly, this service (Mobiiliraha) now bites the dust – I received the official account discontinuation letter a couple of days ago. Why is it not surprising? Well, for one, it broke my rules for a successful mobile payments system.
A hint to those running the website: update the site to reflect the real situation. Having the bank logos sit around on an aging website, associated with a payment solution that’s no longer in use is not exactly good PR.
Besides mass transport tickets, a plethora of premium-SMS services, parking tickets and other single-purpose mobile payment systems, does anyone know whether there are any active mobile multipurpose payment systems working in Finland anymore? I would love to see a Felica-type of a solution (i.e. credit card RFID chip embedded in the phone) to be taken into use over here, too, but I don’t see anyone pushing it.
