ADAPTATION AND USABILITY OF QUICK RESPONSE CODES FOR SUBSCRIPTION TO MOBILE NETWORK OPERATORS’ SERVICES

Abstract

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) permit subscribers to gain access to data, voice calls or short messaging services offered by their networks. Payments for any of these services could be via online payments platforms, short codes provided by financial institutions or the acquisition of recharge vouchers. Of these payment methods, the recharge voucher acquisition option remains the most widely used. However, illegal access to the recharge codes has not been totally eradicated and this has marred the recharge vouchers payment method. Therefore, this paper examined and demonstrated the feasibility of employing Quick Response (QR) code as a more secured payment alternative to recharge vouchers. Twitter fabric’s crashlytics tool was used to evaluate the performance of the developed QR code mobile payment method for a three month periods. A successful payment attempt and crash free sessions were experienced among 48 volunteers who used the application in 125 sessions.