TMCnet Feature

Facebook (News - Alert) and U.K.-based company Bango just signed a deal that Bango says will allow them “to provide payment services to Facebook.” While neither company is talking about the specifics of the deal, analysts speculate that mobile payments may be coming to Facebook.

Currently, Facebook Credits are the only payment mechanism accepted by the social media giant. Customers can purchase credits for 10 cents each that allow them to purchase virtual goods inside of any Facebook game. Within in-game applications, Facebook collects 30 percent on all transactions that utilize Credits. Business Insider reports that at least 200 million people had utilized Facebook Credits as of the summer of 2011.

Bango (News - Alert) may build on the Credits platform by offering carrier billing. Carrier billing allows customers to take mobile transactions and add the transactions to their monthly carrier bill. By purchasing Facebook Credits with carrier billing, customers can avoid having to enter credit card information at the point of sale. Carrier billing will also allow Facebook to bypass Apple’s requirement that in-app billing transactions on the iPhone (News - Alert) or iPad pay a 30 percent commission to the iTunes store.

Analysts also speculate that Facebook may utilize Bango’s mobile analytics tools to capitalize on its mobile market. Mobile users currently make up about 50 percent of all Facebook users. Even though Facebook receives 85 percent of its revenue from advertising, the company does not currently place advertisements on its mobile platform.

Bango’s stock price shot up 40 percent as news of the deal spread through the business community. This increase follows a similar surge a week ago that occurred when news leaked that Bango and Facebook were negotiating a deal. According to reporting in PCWorld, Bango executives said that it’s “too early in the relationship to accurately forecast the level of business that it may generate.”

The mobile payments company also provides support to RIM’s AppWorld on BlackBerry and recently signed a mysterious deal with Amazon related to the Android (News - Alert) store on Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Based in Cambridge, Bango is run by CEO Ray Anderson and has been since its inception in 1999.