Barcodes Used to Enable In-store Cellphone Bill Payment

DoCoMo is introducing a new billing system that enables i-mode users to pay their monthly mobile phone bills at convenience stores using a bar code that is displayed on the screens of their mobile phones.

The service, dubbed "combien?" will be available at two am/pm Japan convenience stores in Tokyo ("Ichiban-cho Honsha Biru" and "Kokusai Akasaka Biru" stores) beginning May 20th, 2002 and will expand to some 1,400 am/pm stores nationwide by early July. It will also be available at several Lawson convenience stores by mid-July and expand to some 700 locations in Tokyo's 23 wards and Nagoya as of September. DoCoMo is also negotiating similar arrangements with other convenience stores.

Since the service eliminates the need for a hard-copy invoice, customers can easily pay their bills whenever they visit a participating convenience store. The service is targeted at i-mode users who pay their bills by invoice.

The bar code is downloaded from a dedicated site linked to the i-mode portal. To prevent double payment, the bar code is valid only on the day when it is downloaded. A dedicated scanner is used to read the two-dimensional bar code, after which the customer pays the bill. There is no fee for the service and users merely pay a small transmission charge to download the bar code.'"

Posted to the site on 15th May 2002