Payments vendor Giesecke & Devrient is to provide Vivo, Brazil’s largest mobile operator, and PayPal with a payments system that enables the operator’s prepaid subscribers to top up their credit directly on their handsets using PayPal.

The service offers more payment flexibility because subscribers will have access to phone credit without having to buy a new recharge card from a retail outlet during normal opening hours, said G&D.

The vendor’s system, which is based on USSD technology, works with all type of handsets and only requires subscribers to set up a PayPal account. A new account can be created on a mobile handset, and afterward subscribers can modify their account details to add or remove linked credit-card information whenever necessary.

Although the service is clearly designed to have as wide a reach as possible, the use of credit cards is a limitation since many Brazilians do not have them and are generally outside the conventional banking industry.

Existing recharge cards are widely accessible to prepaid users because they can be purchased with cash.