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By Gemma Simpson, 27 February 2007 16:50

NEWS

Amnesty International UK is launching a mobile payments system to handle donations of up to £800.

The m-payment system will give the organisation a 15 per cent bigger cut of a contribution than if a supporter donated money via a premium-rate text message (PSMS) service - which carries a charge.

A spokeswoman for Amnesty International said payments via PSMS are also capped at £4.50 and this was not an appropriate or convenient rate for Amnesty's supporters.

The spokeswoman told silicon.com: "Mobile phone penetration is very high in the UK and as most people have their phones on them most of the time it's a very quick, easy and instant way to support us."

The m-payment solution - called 'Luup' and provided by Norwegian company Contopronto - will be piloted as part of a campaign for donations coming from the UK to highlight the plight of people in Dafur, western Sudan.

The spokeswoman said: "Luup allowed individual donations of up to £800 which is far more appropriate as we get such a wide range of donations and we didn't want to limit our supporters."

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The spokeswoman added other providers took a big percentage of each donation - at around 40 per cent commission - whereas with Luup the processing charge is only 2.5 per cent of the donation.

When a new Luup account is created to give money to Amnesty International, Luup will also stump up at least 20 per cent on top of each donation as part of this initial appeal.

Donors signed up with a mobile payment account can use other features - including the ability to handle payments between individuals by sending money over SMS to anyone with a mobile phone.

If the recipient is not a Luup user, they will receive an SMS detailing the amount sent to them and including an invitation to sign up for an account.

The spokeswoman said the Luup system could be used for a worldwide Amnesty International donations system but the charity is taking things one step at a time to see if people respond well to the system.

Mobile payments platforms are becoming more popular, with Visa unveiling a platform last month which it says will "lay the foundation" for the commercial deployment of contactless mobile payments and near-field communication services around the world.

Vodafone also joined forces with Citigroup to offer an international money transfer system earlier this month with the GSM Association leading a similar, separate project.