eBay has bought start-up Zong for an undisclosed sum, as the Online marketplace looks to boost its mobile payments services.
Zong focuses on “frictionless” mobile payments that go directly to mobile carrier billing statements.
Zong will be incorporated to complement eBay’s subsidiary, Paypal, as Zong already has connections with over 250 mobile network operators worldwide in 45 countries and 21 languages.
The technology enables customers to enter their mobile phone numbers, wait a few seconds for verification so that the payments for digital goods and services can clear and then be billed to users’ wireless provider accounts.
The deal, first announced in July, closed last week, with eBay paying approximately $240 million to take over the Menlo Park, California-based company.
In April, eBay pushed forward into mobile commerce with the acquisition of Where, a Boston-based location media and ad network company that developed an app for finding local business listings and daily deals.
Then, in July, PayPal promised support for near-field communications (NFC), enabling peer-to-peer mobile payments. PayPal is expected to process over US$3 billion in mobile payments by the end of 2011.
