Fortumo has announced the launch of hosted direct carrier billing, a new payment product that enables any digital content merchant to use the most advanced features of direct carrier billing, including dynamic pricing, two-step and token-based charging, and recurring payments capabilities, according to a press release.

Fortumo said that hosted direct carrier billing provides merchants with a turnkey product to display and authorize transactions from their users. In the backend, hosted direct carrier billing is directly connected with clean APIs provided by mobile operators.

As a result, merchants can launch direct carrier billing for their customers without needing to negotiate a launch with every carrier separately. They also can develop and maintain checkout flows or manage end-user support.

Fortumo also protects merchants from payments fraud through a built-in set of security features and monitoring by a dedicated risk management team, according to the announcement.

“Direct carrier billing today competes with card-based payments in segments like gaming, streaming and mobile commerce," Martin Koppel, co-founder and CEO of Fortumo, said in a statement. "This means the commercial and technical level of mobile payments needs to be bank-grade in order for merchants to adopt it. Companies like Google and Spotify have pushed carriers to innovate, but so far the advanced features have been available only to a small segment of digital businesses. As Fortumo is the only provider on the market that can service merchants on scale, we are happy to say that direct carrier billing in its purest form is now available to any digital content provider regardless of their size."