Circus leads way with bill payment by mobile

A London restaurant has this week started accepting payment of bills by customers using their mobile phone numbers.

Circus bar and restaurant in London is said to be the first non-Internet business in the UK to use a new system that allows customers to pay their bills with their phones.

Users first have to register with Paybox, a German-based company. When they wish to settle a bill, the waiter enters the customer's mobile number into the existing payment system. Paybox calls the customer's mobile and asks for a four-digit PIN to authorise the transaction, which is then debited from the customer's current account. A text message or e-mail acts as a receipt.

The system was dreamt up by Mattias Entenmann, who is today the chief executive of the company, which is 50%-owned by Deutschebank.

Since Paybox's launch in May 2000, the Austrian hotel association and German hotel chain Lindner are among those which have signed deals to use the service.