As a result of a collaboration between Paymo - the mobile payment network worldwide - and social network hi5, users can now purchase the hi5 virtual currency - hi5 coins - over their mobile phones, in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Thailand, Russia, France, and Colombia.

Paymo is upbeat about newly-offered service's immense potential to take off, largely because it does not necessitate bank accounts or credit cards. The company expects to benefit from the fact that more than two-third of the global online community does not possess a credit card; and that there are over three billion users of mobile phones.

The Paymo service, like the UK mobile payments service Zong, is simple and easy to use. Once the users enter their mobile phone numbers on the site and reply to a Paymo text message, all virtual charges on hi5 get automatically charged to their mobile phone bill for the month.

The leading edge that Paymo has over its competitors - like Zong and Mobillcash - is that while their systems are restricted to particular regional areas; while Paymo, with a much wider access, can facilitate mobile payments in 45 global markets.

Moreover, for its convenient transaction service, Paymo generally charges the users 10% of the purchase price, as against an average 20% to 40% of the purchase price charged by most of the cell phone carriers!