
Compliance
Regulator and Mobile Operator Requirements for DCB
This pages contains the regulator and mobile operator requirements for the use of direct carrier billing in the territories that Infomedia supports around the world.
This tabs sets out for your information the methods by which payments (one-off or recurring) are authenticated via the Infomedia checkout experience.
Territory | Carrier | MSISDN Detection | Automatic (‘2 click’) | SMS PIN | Carrier Portal | Merchant Flow Hosting | Required Languages |
Bahrain | Zain | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | EN & AR |
Bahrain | Viva | No | No | Yes | No | No | EN & AR |
Canada | Telus | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes: Click for Example | EN & FR |
Jordan | Zain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | EN & AR |
KSA | Zain | TBC | No | Yes | No | Yes: Click for Example | EN & AR |
KSA | Mobily | TBC | No | Yes | No | Yes: Click for Example | EN & AR |
KSA | STC | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | TBC | EN & AR |
Kuwait | Zain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | EN & AR |
Kuwait | Ooredoo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Part-hosted – Click for Guide | EN & AR |
Kuwait | Viva | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | EN & AR |
Norway | Strex (all) | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | MSISDN Detection – Carrier Portal
MSISDN Entry – Yes |
NO & EN |
UAE | Etisalat | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes – Click for Examples | EN & AR |
UAE | Du | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | EN & AR |
UK | EE | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | EN |
UK | O2 | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | EN |
UK | Vodafone | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | EN |
UK | Three | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | EN |
United States | Verizon | TBC | No | Yes | Yes – Infomedia host | No | EN |
United States | AT&T | TBC | No | Yes | Yes – Infomedia host | No | EN |
This pages sets out the standard per user spend limits for direct carrier billing, however outside of UK and EU territories higher transactions may be permitted on a case by case basis where supported by business case for exceeding spend limits/mitigated risk of consumer impact
Territory | Currency | Maximum Single Charge | Maximum Aggregated Charges | Other |
Bahrain | BHD | 10 | 30 / month | |
Canada | CAD | N/A | 50 / month | |
KSA | SAR | 100 | N/A | |
Kuwait | KWD | 8 | 30 / month | |
Norway | NOK | N/A | 1000 / month* | *For services targeted at under 18s |
UAE | AED | 300 | N/A | |
UK | GBP | 40 | 240 / month | Services for children must not be priced more than £1.25 per week (or £5.00 per month), one off purchases must not exceed £20.00 per month |
U.S. | USD | N/A | 300 / month |
This pages sets out the requirements for the delivery of customer support services for products billing customers via DCB.
All territories | All emails must be auto-acknowledged and fully responded to within 1 business day |
Where provided, phone line must cost no more than local geographic rate | |
Telephone lines out of business hours must announce hours of opening | |
It is recommended that an answerphone service is available out of hours with all calls returned within 1 business day |
Infomedia’s full Customer Services Procedure and Frameworks can be found here: Customer Support Policy
Territory | Email Languages | Telephone | Telephone Languages | Other | |
Bahrain | Required | EN & AR | Required | EN & AR | |
Canada | Required | EN & FR | Recommended | EN & FR | Language Support: responding to customer queries in the language the customer wrote/called is a legal requirement in Canada. Resolution SLA: 80% of CS queries should be resolved on first contact. |
KSA | Required | EN & AR | Required | EN & AR | |
Kuwait | Required | EN & AR | Required | EN & AR | |
Norway | Required | NO & EN | Required | NO & EN | |
UAE | Required | EN & AR | Recommended | EN & AR | |
UK | Required | EN | Required | EN | Infomedia must record and report CS call numbers to carriers and the regulator. All calls must be routed through Infomedia’s IVR. Out of hours voicemail mandatory on EE. |
U.S. | Required | EN | Recommended | EN |
If you would like Infomedia to help provide customer support in a territory please speak to your account manager.
Services and marketing communications not consistent with the requirements of the local law and code of practice are not permitted. The following guidelines highlight specific areas of risk or prohibitions on certain content within advertising and services however merchants should also refer to the local laws and regulation.
CONTENT RULES
VIOLENCE
SEXUAL CONTENT
OTHER PROHIBITED CONTENT
COMPETITIONS AND PORNOGRAPHY
ADDITIONAL MENA TERRITORY RULES The following material is prohibited in MENA Territories:
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ADVERTISING & FLOW RULES
The following practices are not permitted by merchants in advertising, checkout flow or service content:
Additionally, targeting or failing to exclude advertising directed at the users of tablet devices unable to receive SMS messages in their default state (including but not limited to iPads) is prohibited without express permission from Infomedia. Any tablet users who are subscribed via a device incapable (in its standard form) of receiving operational messaging will be automatically entitled to a full refund regardless of service usage. Merchants are required to document their advertising control processes and may be required to provide this documentation to Infomedia on request in case of a regulatory or carrier audit or request. Calls To Action: It must be shown that customers have made purchasing decisions with fully informed consent. CTA buttons must therefore be unambiguously labelled to indicate that the customer is entering into an obligation to make payment, typically ‘Subscribe’>’Confirm’ or ‘Buy’>’Confirm’. ‘Request PIN’>’Subscribe’/’Buy’ also acceptable. Any other wording must be approved by Infomedia before use. ADDITIONAL UAE RULES Price Display: All adverts for subscription services that lead directly to a checkout experience must clearly state the service price and payment frequency. Advertising Sources: Affiliate marketing networks must not be used in the UAE, all service advertising must be via direct media buying. Notwithstanding the aforementioned prohibition, use of the following advertising networks/content providers in any capacity is not permitted: Headway Mobile Arts ADDITIONAL UK RULES Price Display: All adverts for subscription services that lead directly to a checkout experience must clearly state the service name, price and payment frequency. Advertising Sources: Affiliate marketing networks must not be used in the UK, all service advertising must be via direct media buying. Advertising to Children: It is strictly prohibited to target advertising to anyone under the age of 18 (‘children’) or permit advertising to appear on sites and in apps or any other locations likely to be frequented by children such as children’s websites (such as www.tinypop.com) or apps or games which are likely to be attractive to, or have a main audience of, children (such as TalkingTom). Care should also be taken when setting negative targeting advertising in mixed content websites such as YouTube to ensure that all possible steps are taken to prevent adverts appearing alongside children’s content. The exposure of children to online advertising is a highly sensitive issue in the UK DCB industry and carriers and the regulator reserve the right to suspend services breaching this requirement without warning. ASA: Ads must comply with the relevant sections of the CAP Code (The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing) – https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/advertising-codes/non-broadcast-code.html |
This tabs sets out the types of notification Infomedia is required to send to customers using DCB via SMS. Where indicated you may take responsibility for notification by email; to set this up please speak to your account manager who will provide the integration requirements.
Territory | PIN/Passcode | Single Purchase Receipts | Subscription Start Message | Subscription Renewal Message | Subscription Cancellation Notification | Other | Notes |
Bahrain | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | Help response messages | No messaging required for Zain (provided by carrier portal) |
Canada | SMS | SMS or Email | SMS or Email | SMS or Email | SMS or Email | If email addresses are used these must be either entered at the time of purchase/subscription or have been validated previously (e.g. at point of account setup) and SMS fallback should be in place for failed emails | |
KSA | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | ||
Kuwait | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | Help response messages | No messaging required for Zain (provided by carrier portal)
Only Subscription Renewal messaging required for Ooredoo |
Norway | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS or Email* | SMS | Help response messages | *Additional requirements for Email
Unique shortcode per service required |
UAE | MNO provides | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | Free Period End Messages: Except for daily services, one day before converting the customer from free to paid period, a message shall be sent to notify that next day the payments will start, service name, amount & frequency. | Subscription Start message format is mandated by carriers
Renewal Messages for daily billed services to be sent every 3 days (Etisalat) or Weekly (Du) |
UK | SMS | SMS or Email | SMS or Email | SMS or Email | SMS or Email | If email addresses are used these must be either entered at the time of purchase/subscription or have been validated previously (e.g. at point of account setup) and SMS fallback should be in place for failed emails | |
U.S. | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS | SMS |
All messaging is provided via the Infomedia Platform except where provided directly by the MNO or its technical partner, as indicated. Messaging provided via the Infomedia Platform will be chargeable in accordance with your Agreement with Infomedia.
This table only shows regulatory bodies for direct carrier billing. It does not show other types of regulatory registration linked to service type (e.g. medical advisor registrations) or the general carrying on of business (e.g. tax registration, data protection registration).
Territory | Regulatory Body | Registration Required? | Link |
Bahrain | Telecommunications Regulatory Authority | No | http://www.tra.org.bh/en/legal-instruments/regulations/ |
Canada | Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission | No | https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/comm/telecom/ |
Egypt | National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority | No | http://www.tra.gov.eg/en/SitePages/default.aspx |
Ireland | Comreg | Yes | https://www.comreg.ie/industry/licensing/premium-rate-services-licensing/ |
Jordan | Telecommunications Regulatory Commission | No | https://trc.gov.jo/ |
KSA | Communications and Information Technology Commission | No | https://www.citc.gov.sa/en/Pages/default.aspx |
Kuwait | Ministry of Communications | No | |
Malaysia | The Communications And Multimedia Content Forum Of Malaysia | No | http://www.cmcf.my/home.php |
Oman | Telecommunications Regulatory Authority | No | |
Norway | Norwegian Consumer Authority (Forbrukertilsynet) | No | https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/english
Advertising Rules: https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/english/guidelines |
Qatar | Communications Regulatory Authority | No | https://www.cra.gov.qa/ |
South Africa | WASPA | Yes | https://waspa.org.za/waspa-membership-costs-policy-and-guidelines/waspa-membership-application/ |
UAE | Telecommunications Regulatory Authority | No | https://www.tra.gov.ae/en/home.aspx |
UK | Phone-paid Services Authority | Yes | https://psauthority.org.uk/for-business/~/link.aspx?_id=E60A7D6422E34C82B78AC8A217CC6F27&_z=z |
This tab sets out territory-specific and/or miscellaneous requirements not covered elsewhere.
United Kingdom
- Service Registration: In addition to service providers being registered, all individual services must be registered with the regulator via regulator website
- Unsubscription: Unsubscription functionality must be available from within subscription services. Infomedia provide an API and URL for this purpose which will be set up during your integration with us.
- Data Reporting: UK carriers require the following data to be captured monthly reported at least every 6 months and also on request:
- Customer service rate (number of CS queries as a % of base),
- Churn Rate calculated as as [Number of users unsubscribing] / ([Base at start of reporting period] + [New acquisitions in reporting period]),
- % of new users each month who interact with the product/service at least twice in the first week of subscription and a further additional time within the first month.
- EE UK also maintain a rule which requires any user who has not interacted with a service after (and not including) the first 24 hours of a subscription and for a further 120 days shall be automatically entitled to a full refund if requested
Norway
- Retries: Subscription Retries limited to once per day, no retries on single purchase.
- Age Restrictions: Only over 18s can purchase subscription services, all services must have an age appropriateness defined (e.g. 12+, 15+, 18+)
- Subscription timeout: Where a subscription customer has not had a successful bill or a successful message delivery for 60 consecutive days, their subscription will be cancelled automatically.
Canada
- Online Portal & SEO: All services shall provide an online portal for their service which will display FAQs regarding the service, instructions on how to access/login to the service and allow a user to unsubscribe from a service by inputting their MSISDN. The online portal must be easily discoverable through a Google search, with appropriate SEO and keywords matching the service name. The service itself must also be easily discoverable through a google search, and must not be able to be accessed for free.
- Anti-fraud/Compliance Monitoring: Merchant must enter into a third party compliance monitoring and anti-fraud agreement with our supplier MCP Insights, or Infomedia can provide as a service.
- Refunds: Use of Refund to Bill is mandatory for all refunds unless a customer explicitly requests a different method. This can either be via integration with our Refund API or using our CS web portal ‘CSLite’ to process refunds.
United States
- Pay Monthly Restriction: On Verizon, DCB is not available to pre-pay (pay as you go) customers or any customers based in New Mexico.
- Anti-fraud/Compliance Monitoring: Merchant must enter into a third party compliance monitoring and anti-fraud agreement with our supplier MCP Insights, or Infomedia can provide as a service.
Retry Policy
Unless specified differently above, users whose bill fails due to ‘out of credit’ or similar error may be retried 3 times on day 1, twice on day 2 and once per day for every day until the end of the billing cycle (up to 45 days). The policy resets on the commencement of a new billing cycle. Expired billing cycles must not be retried (this should be taken into account when setting grace periods below). Users who have failed to bill for 45 consecutive days must be automatically unsubscribed however a merchant may set a shorter period if they wish.
Users whose bill fails due to closed, barred or suspended MNO account may be retried 3 times on day 1, twice on day 2 and once on day 3, then the subscription must be cancelled.
Other MNO technical errors will be automatically retried for 45 days. Users who have failed to bill for 45 consecutive days must be automatically unsubscribed however a merchant may set a shorter period if they wish.
A merchant may choose a grace period during which a user whose bill has failed retains access to their service. It is recommended a grace period of 7 days is implemented to account for MNO technical errors however we appreciate this will not be viable in all cases.
Split billing is not permitted (e.g. splitting a £5 charging into 2x £2.50 on the first attempt). Step charging after first bill failure is permitted on some carriers, please ask your account manager for details.
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