Boku, a carrier billing-based mobile payments company, has released Phone-on-File, a new cross-platform product that enables consumers to store their mobile phone number as a preferred payment method, enabling a streamlined checkout experience for one-time and subscription purchases.

Boku claimed in a press release that Phone-on-File is the first such technology and Boku is the only carrier billing provider to truly allow the phone number to challenge credit cards on any and all platforms for repeat purchases. The company asks the user to provide a standing authorization to the merchant to charge their phone bill up to a specified limit.

Boku said that for one-time purcahses, Phone-on-File is designed to give merchants who use carrier billing the same streamlined one-click checkout offered by services such as Amazon without the need for a credit card. The initial signup is completed through a one-time SMS authentication and all future purchases are completed in one click, bypassing a second authorization that is typically required for carrier billing transactions, the company said in the announcement.  

Boku said that because the authorization is provided to the merchant, consumers can use the one-click checkout feature on any platform through which they purchase merchants' goods and or services — including desktop, mobile Web, and mobile in-app. The company has implemented Phone-on-File for one-time purchases with a select group of global merchants and said that the results have shown an average conversion uplift of 5 percent and a reduction in returning user billing failures of nearly 50 percent.

For subscription purchases, Phone-on-File enables carrier billing to function like avcredit card, whereby carrier billing can be accepted as a recurring payment option without the need for subsequent approvals. The technology gives merchants the ability to control the timing of the charge once the user has given a standing authorization, and to offer key subscription features such as free and discounted trial periods. It also enables the easy integration of carrier billing into the merchant's existing subscription engines, Boku said.

"A key element to the strength of companies like Amazon and Apple has been their ability to create frictionless checkout experiences using stored credit card information," Jon Prideaux, Boku CEO, said in a statement. "This is that same experience that Boku is bringing to the mobile phone number with Phone-on-File. Our goal is to make stored 'phone-on-file' every bit as powerful as a 'card-on-file' for the benefit of our merchant partners."

The new Phone-on-File functionality is currently available in the U.K., Germany, Italy and the United States, with more markets to be made available in the coming months.