Payments firm seeks banking licence as industry shake-up gathers momentum

A UK payments firm is applying for a banking licence to provide a full range of bank services to businesses, joining a growing list of firms targeting the area as the industry reshapes after the financial crisis.

Voice Commerce Group, an unlisted payments firm that is interested in buying bigger rival RBS WorldPay, said on Monday it had appointed law firm Mills & Reeve to get a license from the Financial Services Authority to operate as a business bank.

“There are some real opportunities. There's a sea change in the way that financial services are going to be provided to businesses and consumers over the next 12 to 18 months,” said Nick Ogden, chief executive officer of Voice Commerce.

It is likely to take about six months to get the licence and offer a range of services first in Britain, he said. He is aiming for about 50,000 customers by the end of 2011 and and also has sights on expanding in Europe and the US, he said.

Voice Commerce was formed in 2005 and provides mobile financial, payment, identity and verification services.

Payments firm seeks banking licence as industry shake-up gathers momentum
Tuesday, 23rd February 2010
FINANCIAL SERVICES
A UK payments firm is applying for a banking licence to provide a full range of bank services to businesses, joining a growing list of firms targeting the area as the industry reshapes after the financial crisis.
Voice Commerce Group, an unlisted payments firm that is interested in buying bigger rival RBS WorldPay, said on Monday it had appointed law firm Mills & Reeve to get a license from the Financial Services Authority to operate as a business bank.
“There are some real opportunities. There's a sea change in the way that financial services are going to be provided to businesses and consumers over the next 12 to 18 months,” said Nick Ogden, chief executive officer of Voice Commerce.
It is likely to take about six months to get the licence and offer a range of services first in Britain, he said. He is aiming for about 50,000 customers by the end of 2011 and and also has sights on expanding in Europe and the US, he said.
Voice Commerce was formed in 2005 and provides mobile financial, payment, identity and verification services.

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Pirate boss to make the web pay

One of the founders of the Pirate Bay is kicking off a venture that aims to help websites generate cash.

Called Flattr, the micropayments system revolves around members paying a fixed monthly fee.

At the end of each month that cash will be divided among participating sites a Flattr member wants to reward.

Members might want to reward a band that made a track they liked, the author of a story they enjoyed or a site that gave useful advice.

Participating sites will sport a Flattr button in the same way that many have clickable icons that let visitors send information to friends or refer something they find interesting to sites such as Digg and Redditt.

"The money you pay each month will be spread evenly among the buttons you click in a month," said Mr Sunde.

"We want to encourage people to share money as well as content," Mr Sunde told the BBC. "It's a test to see if this might be a working method for real micropayments."

The minimum Flattr wants people to pay each month is 2 euros (£1.73) but members can pay more if they want to.

"That way you have control over your monthly spending on content, and you can rather help many people than just a few," he said.

Many micropayment systems had not proved popular, he said, because they were too cumbersome to use regularly.

Mr Sunde said he hoped it proved popular among the vast number of niche sites run by passionate amateurs that have a small, dedicated audience but which struggle to cover their operating costs.

Initially, Flattr plans to take a 10% cut of any cash paid as an administration fee. But, said Mr Sunde, it hopes to push that percentage lower as people sign up.

"We're not really in this for becoming rich," he said. "We're doing it to change things and making people get money they never got before."

"I know that people are nice enough," he said. "People love things and they want to pay."

Flattr is currently in a closed trial but hopes to be ready to launch by the end of March 2010. It is seeking partners looking to generate some cash from their content.

Mr Sunde said the idea for Flattr came to him about five years ago but could not pursue it because of "other things that took massive amounts of time".

"I wanted to find an one-click way to pay for content," he said. "I wanted it to be based on the idea that different people have different financial situations," he told the BBC. "So doing it in a flat rate manner was the only way."

The "other things" included The Pirate Bay website that pointed people towards copyrighted content such as music tracks and videos. Mr Sunde and three other administrators of the site were pursued in Sweden's courts by film and video game makers.

In April 2009, the four were found guilty of aiding copyright theft and were sentenced to one year in prison and fined 2.7m euros (£2.35m). Final appeals from both sides of the case are due to be heard in early 2010.
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