Anyone with a Dutch bank and cell phone number can now transfer money privately with a text message (SMS) by using Rabobank SMS betalen (Rabobank Text Message Payment, Dutch). Useful for such things as sharing a cab, buying a birthday gift together with several friends or paying in a restaurant. There are a few simple steps:

• open a mobile wallet on www.rabosmsbetalen.nl and put money on it


• send a text message to 6689 with the cell phone number of the recipient and the monetary amount (for example 0621567657 10)


• you'll receive a text message confirmation of 6689 with a password – that's just a normal Dutch word; in my test it was 'kwaal' (illness)


• send a text message with the password to 6689


• you've paid. The recipient will now receive a text message with the amount paid and the cell phone number of the person who made the transaction

If the recipient doesn't yet have a mobile wallet, they'll receive one automatically on the payment. Then the recipient can pay with the money again immediately and this allows the mechanism to spread virally very fast.

Future Vision by Erwin Van Lun on this article

People don’t want to transfer money to a number, but to a person. A cell phone number is already more a ‘human’ than a bank account (which could also represent, say, a company). Soon it’ll be a standard function in Live Messenger, transfer money. Currently through Rabobank, but soon everyone will have a wallet hidden behind their telephone number. Sooner or later a financial coaching brand can help you with the simple sentence ‘transfer ten euros to Erwin’. Given the setting around that time the brand won’t even have to ask you which Erwin you mean, but transfer the money immediately. This mobile product brings this future another step closer.

• in Dutch