Mobile loans: Get US$300 in 15 minutes by text
Alex sent me a note pointing to a news story on Swedish International Radio. Conveniently it’s in English and begins thus:
Swedish authorities are concerned that young people are jumping on a new sms mobile text money loan service but are getting caught out when it comes to paying the money back.
It goes on to explain:
The service which kicked off at the beginning of the year, offers loans of upto 300 US dollars in minutes, simply by sending a text message.
I love the concept. I really do. Immediate access to a small amount of cash. You make impulsive shoe purchases, record purchases, why not loan purchases? 😉 The last time I filled in one of those credit card forms — years ago — under the ‘what do you want your limit to be’ field, it used to say ‘Minimum: £300’. I imagine they didn’t want you wandering around with a £50 limit. £300 was, it seems, the lowest amount of credit they’d give you.
So it makes sense that the convenience and immediacy of the mobile world should extend to getting a loan, albeit a small one.
I did a bit of hunting and came up with this site here: Mobillan. I think this is the service in question. I can’t be sure – my Swedish is limited to anything that bears a passing resemblance to English.
You can see the concept fairly well illustrated there on the site.
It’s not a ‘mobile loan’ per se — it’s more a loan via mobile, capitalising on the convenience and immediacy.
Whenever I’ve thought about getting a loan, I sometimes think ‘Ah hah, yes. Get the Bentley now..’ and look at the payment examples they send through with the forms. Regardless of the fiscal virtues, filling in the form is a total arse, particularly when I infrequently use pens any more.
Loans by mobile appeals. There are certainly some social issues to consider for a few seconds prior to signing up. 😉 Debt mountains, financial responsibilities. I’m surprised no UK companies have done this.
If you can get a loan over the phone, why not by text? Perhaps with a call-back from someone in the call centre to verify details.
I really can see quite a few consumers going for this — and perhaps not quite getting that it’s traditional debt. If you were to say to them ‘take out another credit card,’ I think internal responsibility would reign in quite a lot of them. But if you separate the concept slightly — make it mobile or web oriented, I reckon quite a few will do the same in their mind.
Whatever your perspective, I think it’s a good example of innovation using the mobile industry. More please!
UPDATE: Having re-read Alex’s email, he made a point I forget to address. He was wondering how you repay the loan — and speculated that perhaps, you repay it through premium SMS. Who knows. I’ll need to see if Google does a Swedish-to-English translator.
