Back in July we reported on the Paypal X / FNB competition to develop local adaptation of innovative paypal applications, and here are the results! Two up-and-coming star developers have created Billbox, a brand new application using PayPal’s payment platform that offers proof of their formidable skills. Now the pair of Neil Koekemoer and Werner Janse van Rensburg have been rewarded for their excellence, and declared winners of the PayPal X / FNB Developer Challenge – the award for the most innovative platform using PayPal.

Billbox is an extremely useful application for anyone who has ever lived in a situation where they’ve needed to split expenses with others – it monitors receipts and payments for those who share bills. Not only does it keep track of shared expenses, it also requests payment from group members.

Koekemoer explains how Billbox will be used: “Our App is designed for people who share expenses such as students, housemates or holiday and business travel groups. Individuals can also use the application to track their own spending habits,” he says.

His co-creator Janse van Rensburg adds, “Having shared bills with housemates for several years, we knew there was a need for a product like Billbox ― and we were our own best customers.”

The competition and award is part of FNB’s on-going commitment to driving innovation in the financial services sector. The PayPal X Developer Challenge highlights the demand for payment enabled platforms and rewards innovative uses of PayPal’s payments tools.

Interestingly, the pair, who are about to be flown by FNB to attend the PayPal X Innovate 2010 Conference in San Francisco as a result of their victory, only found out about the competition at the last minute. They heard FNB CEO Michael Jordaan and PayPal’s Regional Director of Israel and South Africa Oded Zehavi make an announcement about it at the Silicone Cape event in Cape Town.

“Three hundred and fifty seven hours later Billbox was born, just in time for the closing date of the PayPal X / FNB Developer Challenge,” said Koekemoer.

Currently content creators are sitting with a bit of a dillemma – the internet is not a place that necessarily likes paying for content, or at least thats the opinion of users. Any business case looking into news media will confirm this – people do not want to not want to pay for something that they can get free. Just ask Rupert Murdoch who recently decided to start asking people subscription charges to access the Times website. Early indicators show that its not neccesarily a big success. But this not because people do not want to pay for content, they hate the fragmented paywall system.

Solutions like iTunes for multimedia proves that people are willing to pay for content, provided its easy to do, and universal in terms of scope. And this is where Cred comes in, created by South Africans Saul Kropman, Jason Kramer and Toby Kurien. Instead of having to register at every content site (for example like The Times), users will use the Cred micropayment system to purchase credits to buy access to the relevant article. Cred is not only applicable to text based content like news, but multimedia sources as well.

At present, one Cred is worth one South African Rand, and publishers can charge up to a maximum of 20 Creds. At present  different denominations are available, starting from around R50 up to R150. In future users will be able to define their own amount. At present the system uses your credit card to pay for these, but Paypal support is coming in future.

For more info, here is the official press release:
As the developed world moves towards spending more online than on traditional media such as television and print, you’d assume that monetization of the Internet would come from advertising. With advertising revenue come massive expenses as journalists, technology and marketing come into play.  Internationally, media mogul Rupert Murdoch runs around calling everyone on the Internet a kleptomaniac for stealing his content and is aiming to lock down his online portals and go so far as to remove them from Google.

The fact remains that even with a full advertising complement, revenue simply cannot outweigh costs.

This is essentially where Cred comes in, we allow content providers to monetize their websites by charging users for content with individual micropayments or subscriptions. We at Cred love content; we personally create and consume content on a constant basis and it was this passion for excellent quality that led to the idea for Cred. With online text, audio and video being free there is little ascribed value and if there’s no value, what pressure is there for excellent content to be produced? Cred aims to preserve quality content by putting a value; we believe that the cream of content will then rise to the top.

Currently in the final stages of testing, we’re accepting sign ups from content providers looking to prove their content is worth charging for. Initially we’re available for the WordPress platform and eventually will expand to other platforms such as Drupal, Joomla as well as provide documentation that will allow developers to hook into their own niche content management systems.

The revenue model affords content providers 80% of all revenue without having to worry about fraud, payment gateways and are linked to a ubiquitous payment system thus allowing for easier access to your content by users with a Cred account. Cred scales perfectly for larger organisations as they can white label the Cred offering if desired.

Whether a small, niche publisher, band, photographer, author or massive media conglomerate anyone can start charging for their content with Cred.

Go to www.yourcred.com to sign up and follow us on twitter: @yourcred

Paypal has been available for a few months in South Africa, and the uptake has been a bit slow so far in my experience. I would have thought that e-commerce websites in SA would have jumped at the chance to use Paypal. I do like the idea behind Paypal – never having to expose my credit card details online, and I always use it when I am given the choice.

Clearly FNB is trying to foster some development in this regard, and the prizes are quite big:

First National Bank (FNB) and PayPal today announced a new competition to award developers who create innovative applications using PayPal’s payment platform.

The local winner of the FNB and PayPal X Award will receive a trip to the United States to attend PayPal’s second annual Innovate Conference, which is taking place 26 and 27 October. The prize will include airfare, accommodation, meals, conference costs, visa expenses and insurance to an approximate value of $10,000. In addition, developers will also be automatically entered into PayPal’s X Developer Challenge and could receive an award totalling up to $100,000 in prizes.

This year’s PayPal X Innovate 2010 conference will be held at Moscone West in San Francisco. The conference will feature presentations from industry experts, new product announcements and sessions that will give developers the tools and support they need to create the future of payments.

“The first FNB and PayPal X Award seeks to reward South Africa’s entrepreneurial spirit and jump start local innovation and new business ventures,” said Chris Savides, General Manager, FNB Complementary Online Services.

PayPal opened its application programming interfaces (APIs) last year, giving developers around the world the ability to monetize their ideas and build new payment applications on new devices and development platforms.

“PayPal has always stood for innovation in payments,” said Oded Zehavi, regional director of PayPal Israel and South Africa. “We are excited to partner with FNB to encourage developers to build their dream apps and make payments safer and easier for people in South Africa.”

How to enter

To submit for the FNB and PayPal X Award, log on to x.com and click to register for the PayPal X Developer Challenge. Select the box for the FNB and PayPal X Award.

Is there is an Apple PayPal Killer in the ranks!? That’s the question on everyone’s minds these days.

After being rumored to come up with the Apple Tablet and a bunch of new iPhones, the newest thing we’re itching to know is if Apple is planning a service that would allow the iTunes Store account holders to make purchases on participating third-party sites across the Internet.

Considering that behind the rumor are the Wall Street gossips, you’ll have to take it with a pinch of salt before getting too excited. There’s no official word from Apple, but if we’re to consider the success of Paypal and the fact that Facebook recently introduced a “pay with Facebook” feature, Cupertino may want to cash in on their amazing user base in the online payments business.

Could it be that Apple depends too much on their hardware products (iPhones, Macs, iPods) — which may see a drop in sales, soon — and they’re looking for a way to diversify their business?

No matter whatever the reason is, we’d love to get it tested out.

[via BusinessWire]