Dear AIME Colleagues,
It’s true; the holidays are officially over and it is back to business for the Industry. While the warm weather might be heading over the horizon, the long
list of initiatives and Industry issues AIME is tackling is staying put, as we begin to look forward to a busy upcoming period with new managing director Rory Maguire now at the helm.
Waving goodbye to Summer with one hand and waving hello to Members with the other, our annual Summer networking drinks at the start of this month saw Oxygen8 and Cellcast kindly returning to sponsor what is always a great event to catch up with Industry peers.
Two potentially significant issues have crept onto AIME’s radar during what is supposed to be the relatively quiet months of Summer. A redraft to the European Payment Services Directive (PSD) has seen a threat to large sections of the existing mobile and fixed line services market that would no longer be exempted from being a Payment Service. AIME produced a whitepaper to summarise the issue for members and analyse the potential implications of the PSD redraft. We’ll be meeting with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) at the beginning of October to lay plans of action.
Another potential issue that has been bought to AIME’s attention that could cause problems for some Members is the recent decision for the MNO’s self- regulated digital content rating system to be transferred to the responsibility of the British Board of Film Censors. This could potentially result in a ratings change for some of the digital content currently available – something AIME and members will be discussing with the BBFC during a workshop on the 26th September.
We will be meeting with PhonepayPlus this month for our quarterly meeting. Top of the agenda for us are the continuing issues to members and consumers caused by affiliate marketers and how our members can deal with this issue as well as discussion on prior permission process and the upcoming review of the 12th code in light of the Ofcom changes to unbundling.
Two forums will meet before the end of this month. The Voice Services Working Group will be discussing Voice Short Codes, Higher rate PRS and AIME’s response to government proposals to ensure customer service numbers are aligned in price to standard rate price points, and the Payforit/In-app/Mobile Payments Forum discussing successful environments for Payforit, updates on PFI v 4.1 and the changes to in-app charging on Android announced by Google.
I am sure it will be a busy few months for Rory, the AIME team (David Ashman, Ryan Hall, Fleur Bowles and Catherine Easton) and the industry, so please keep an eye out for AIME’s announcements and alerts in your inbox and make use of the new AIME online calendar here to keep abreast of upcoming events and forums.
I would like to extend AIMEs welcome to new members, SLA Mobile, GoVerifyIt, Perfect Information and Empello and a special thank you to ImpulsePay who have upgraded their membership to Sponsor Member.
Yours,
Edward Boddington
Chairman
