Telefónica rekindles Bluevia with Telenor’s app platform

Norway’s Telenor has agreed to make its application programme interface (API) available through BlueVia platform of Telefónica. The partnership is a significant milestone for BlueVia as it seeks to become an open shared platform.

The accord offers partners and developers the opportunity “to build and market apps to hundreds of millions of customers globally,” the Spanish company said in a press release.

The BlueVia platform will focus initially on the area of mobile payments, enabling ecosystems to charge apps and content to mobile customers directly through their bill when they make a purchase. Like other technology firms, BlueVia uses API software to allow developers to build apps and mobile web services that will run on its infrastructure and participate of the resultant revenue.

Telefónica and Telenor aim at facilitating direct to bill payments to increase downloads of paid for mobile content, such as apps. This is especially the case in developing markets where the penetration of bank accounts and credit cards is low. Earlier this year, Telefónica announced that it had signed global, framework agreements with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Research in Motion (RIM) to offer direct to bill payments.

In Germany, where Telefónica has already rolled out direct to bill payments, more than 400,000 customers on average per month are being charged via this capability.

The two companies will also extend an invitation to other global telecommunication business to join. Jose Valles, head of BlueVia, explained that “from the beginning, BlueVia’s goal has been to gather scale and experiment fast on API business, not sticking to Telefónica’s footprint but opening our vision to a pure global ecosystem.”

“Telenor joins the BlueVia platform as an equal partner, and we extend an invitation to other global telcos to join us in this new way of working together,” said Rolv-Erik Spilling, of Telenor Digital Services.

BlueVia, Telefónica’s global platform, was established last year to enable developers to take apps, webs services and ideas to market.