When the mobile payments business Bango listed on the junior Aim market in 2005, only 2 per cent of us owned a smartphone. Founder Ray Anderson, a big name on the Cambridge tech scene, went on investor rounds making what seemed wild promises: the £5 million Bango wanted to raise would capitalise on “the increasing capacity of mobile phones to entertain large numbers of users”. One day, would-be investors were told, phones would be used for shopping and games, not just text messages and calls.
Bango got those early calls right. Its mobile payment platform is now used by all the big app stores, including those of Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon, enabling users to charge purchases made in apps to their phone accounts. Given