Valista

Valista is a technology company that specializes in Providing the infrastructure for digital commerce including merchandizing, payments and settlement solutions over multiple channels. Its customers include mobile operators, broadband operators, cable operators, aggregators, media and entertainment companies such as games vendors, broadcasters, producers and publishers.

Valista enables the buying and selling of digital goods and services over mobile, fixed-line, broadband, TV and emerging channels.

Valista enables users to pay for digital goods and services using any instrument including WAP billing, prepaid account, stored value, credit or debit cards, PayPal or person-to-person payments and loyalty.

Valista’s solutions are in use by such customers as America Online, Cricket Communications, France Telecom’s w-HA, Orange, Vodafone UK, NTT DoCoMo, Taito Corporation, 3 and Hong Kong CSL.

Valista is a privately-owned Venture Capital backed company headquartered near Dublin Ireland and San Mateo, California USA. It has received funding from a range of leading Venture Capitalists. Most recently, the company completed a $12 million round of funding in June 2003 which was led by Advent Venture Partners.

See also

News articles about Valista

Digital Commerce

Digital Commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services over digital channels including mobile, fixed-line, broadband, TV and emerging channels.

Merchandizing

Merchandizing refers to the methods, practices and operations conducted to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. The term is understood to have different specific meanings depending on the context. In the context of digital commerce, it refers to advanced marketing solutions used by service providers to incentivise users to buy more such as multi-merchant bundling, subscriptions, promotions, discounting and loyalty programs.

Payments

In the context of digital commerce, this refers to the way in which users pay for digital goods and services over mobile, broadband, cable or TV networks. Transaction processing solutions enable enterprises such as mobile operators, broadband and cable operators, aggregators, media and entertainment companies to provide payment solutions for premium content and services. Such payment solutions may include: monthly bill, prepaid account, stored value, Paypal, credit/debit cards, person-to-person payments and loyalty schemes.

Settlement

The evolution of digital commerce for digital content and services supports significantly more intricate relationships between content providers, distributors, operators, promotional sponsors and third parties. In such multi-party relationships, the contracts between participants are linked such that a single event results in multiple payables and receivables. In these scenarios, the amount paid by the consumer is then shared between the multiple participants involved in the transaction. Usually the merchant who provided the service or sold a product ends up receiving less money than what was paid by the consumer. Today, a significant amount of settlement is calculated manually. As merchandizing models get ever more complex, and with the emergence of advertising sponsored content and services, the need to automate the settlement process is becoming ever more critical.

Revenue sharing is the process of executing the contracts for the various participants in a transaction and the generation of settlement reports, accounts payable or receivable as appropriate, between all parties. As such, the challenge of the revenue-sharing and settlement engine is to manage and support the variations that such contracts can take.

Multiple Channels

This refers to the channels over which digital content can be downloaded for example mobile, fixed-line, broadband, TV, cable etc.

Mobile Operators

See Mobile Operators on Wikipedia

Broadband Operators

See Wireless Internet Service Providers on Wikipedia

Cable Operators

See Cable on Wikipedia

Aggregators

See Aggregators on Wikipedia

WAP Billing

WAP billing, also known as direct-to-bill charging or billing on behalf of (BOBO) is when the user pays for digital content or services by placing it on their monthly bill (mobile or ISP). This means the user does not have to use a credit or debit card and is the most convenient method for making payments using the mobile phone.

See WAP on Wikipedia

Prepaid Accoount

See Prepaid on Wikipedia

Stored Value

See Stored Value Card on Wikipedia

PayPal

See PayPal on Wikipedia

Person-to-Person Payments

See Person-to-person lending on Wikipedia

Premium Content

Premium content refers to any Content or service for which there is a charge to the Customer displayed online. Examples include games, music, ringtones, security software, video downloads etc.

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