Paymentwall, the American-based online payments platform which has its European headquarters in Berlin, has launched an HTML5-based global alternative to iTunes and Android app stores. The company says the launch of Paymentwall Mobile will enable more than two billion mobile users to pay for apps and other digital goods using local payment options for the first time.
And to celebrate, the startup will host a party on a River Rhine cruise boat during the upcoming gamescom in Cologne.
With iTunes and Google Play only allowing credit card payments, some 90 percent of mobile users around the world who either don’t have such cards or don’t want to use them online are left out, according to Paymentwall. The new service, by enabling local payment options with money collected in 70 currencies in more than 200 countries, allows app developers to better monetize their market globally.
Paymentwall CEO Honor Gunday said: “Although iTunes is well executed, the 30 percent fee the publishers need to swallow (Paymentwall Mobile will charge 5 percent) and the Western-oriented approach to monetizing only via credit card is not sustainable and HTML5 will emerge as the future of mobile application development.”
In addition, Gunday said that the payments flow and fractured nature of app stores on Android would mean increasing numbers of people turning to HTML5.
Paymentwall was founded in San Francisco, and became a notable example of Silicon Valley taking notice of Berlin when its European HQ was set up on Unter den Linden rather than in the traditional tech hotspot of London. With a new office now having also opened in Manila, attention will return to Germany with the river cruise party on August 16 as part of gamescom, a big gaming convention in Cologne which will be attended by Berlin-based startups including eelusion.
You can register for the cruise here.