Vodafone plus PayPal equals mobile top-up on the move

Stephen Withers
Monday, 08 December 2008 10:21

Your IT - Mobility

Vodafone has added PayPal to the list of ways its prepaid mobile customers can top up their accounts.

Prepaid topups are most commonly carried out by buying vouchers at retailers such as supermarkets, variety stores and newsagents.

But in what the carrier claims is a first for Australia (and second only to its Italian operation), customers can now recharge their mobiles from their PayPal account.

The funds can originate from a credit or debit card, a direct debit from a bank account, or an existing PayPal balance.

Once everything is set up, customers can top up directly from their mobile phones.

"Now, Vodafone is harnessing the capabilities of mobiles to make life even easier for our customers," said Vodafone Australia CEO Russell Hewitt.

"Australians are highly mobile and they often need to recharge on the move, so we've made that possible today."

One oddity is that the transaction results in the customer receiving a recharge PIN (much like topping up at a store) rather than the account being automatically topped up.

So life's a little easier, but not as easy as it could be.

PayPal welcomed the announcement. (Well, they would, wouldn't they?)

"Not only is the process more convenient, it's also very secure because PayPal never shares customers' financial information," said PayPal Australia managing director, Andrew Pipolo.

We're not totally convinced that this of itself makes a process "very secure", but it is a Good Thing.