The Times' patents its micropayment system

News International will tomorrow file an application to patent a micropayment system which it intends to use on its own sites and sell to third parties.

Last week Times Online announced it is going to start charging overseas visitors to view content. To process these and other premium content transactions the company will use its very own micropayment system.

A subsidiary of the company, Omnimedia, develops mobile applications for use both in-house and externally and spent two months putting the system together.

Steven Van Rooyen, general manager at Omnimedia, explained that it is looking to sell the micropayment system to other media companies, record labels and adult entertainment outfits.

The system will take payments for articles costing 25p and upwards.

Van Rooyen told silicon.com: "I predict the m-payment system will account for 10-15 per cent of Omnimedia's total revenue."

Visitors to Times Online will have to enter their mobile phone number to view premium content. The charge for viewing these parts of the site will then be added to their monthly phone bill.

Micropayments have become a dirty word in technology and ecommerce circles. As far as many are concerned, developers of the much-needed technology cannot yet offer something that is liked by both merchants and consumers.

While payments above $20 can be handled by credit card and those less than $2 can be dealt with by pre-pay cards (rather like mobile phone cards), figures of between $5 and $10 are not so easy to crack.

Annelies van den Belt, digital director at Times Newspapers, explained that having looked around at about 20 companies, News International decided its best option was to develop a system in-house.

But Dr Neil Barrett, CTO of security consultancy International Risk Management, is not convinced Times Online content has what it takes to really excite visitors.

He said: "Technically they might have something that rocks but they haven't got the killer app."

Barrett argued that consumers are prepared to pay for access to photo libraries, music and porn - and not necessarily the kind of content available at Times Online.