June 2012
mHITs, a pioneering developer and operator of mobile payment services, welcomes the recent public interest and discussion surrounding smart parking and the potential introduction of mobile phone technology for payment for parking in it’s home city of Canberra Australia.
Using a mobile phone as a payment method for parking is the modern, logical solution due its convenience, ubiquity and inherent communications capability. Payment for parking using a mobile phone also provides an opportunity for new innovative services such as meter expiry notification and remote meter top-up capability.
Also, when deployed as a cloud based solution, mobile phone payment can provide more flexibility and cost savings to parking operators due to lower implementation and operational costs compared with older alternatives such as cash, credit/debit card and even NFC. These not only have high infrastructure and maintenance costs, they are inherently unsecure, unreliable, and ultimately redundant as they represent an outdated approach to parking by not addressing the requirements today’s mobile phone centric society.
Canberra is uniquely positioned to introduce innovative, world-leading technology such as mobile phone payment for parking due to it’s status as a modern, high-tech, digital city, and also due to factors such as central governance, modern infrastructure, planned geographical layout, and services such as the recently introduced MyWay stored value card currently used for public transport.
For example, it is theoretically feasible that services such as the MyWay stored value transport card could potentially be linked to or used as a funding source for a mobile phone payment based parking solution. This could mean less duplication of infrastructure for the local government or council, and increased convenience for end users.
For more information on the mHITs Australia SMS payment service see www.mhits.com.au.
about mHITs
mHITs (pronounced Em-HITS) is a multi-award winning Australian based developer and operator of mobile payment services. In Australia, mHITs operates the mHITs SMS payment service that allows consumers to send and receive small payments by SMS text message and also order and pay for food and beverage items such as coffee. mHITs is already used in a number of Canberra cafes for ordering and payment of take-away coffee. The mHITs service is also used for international mobile remittance and can be expanded to allow payment for services such as parking.
For more information on the mHITs Australia SMS payment service see www.mhits.com.au.
about mHITs in developing markets
mHITs is also working in emerging markets in the design, deployment and operation of mobile payment solutions for the so called “unbanked” (people who do not have access to traditional banking services).
Use of the mobile phone as a payment device is acknowledged as a logical payment solution for the unbanked as people in developing countries often lack the formal identity requirements that traditional banking services require such as a birth certificate, formal address or regular employment or income. The lack of bank branches, limited number of ATM’s, limited access to the Internet and the general low level of financial literacy in developing countries are contrasted by the large-scale uptake of mobile phones in these same markets, making a mobile device the logical solution for payments.
In 2011, mHITs received a high commendation in the Emerging Exporter category of the ACT Chief Minister’s Export Awards.
For more information on mHITs’ activities in emerging markets visit www.mhitslimited.com.
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