Mobile marketing and payments company Mobile Embrace has formed a partnership with Malaysian telecommunications company Telenor and will provide mobile payment services to the telco's customers.Mobile Embrace uses a payment technology called direct carrier billing, which allows a consumer to buy a digital product or service and have the cost billed to their mobile account.The company provides payment gateway services for customers of Telstra, Optus, SingTel and the Swiss telco Swisscom. Its deal in Malaysia is part of a larger partnership with the Norwegian telco Telenor, which operates in 13 markets. It plans to move into another six of Telenor's markets.Mobile Embrace chief executive Chris Thorpe said the service was cloud based and device agnostic. Typical products include games, entertainment and sports apps, phone security and analytics products, and information services.The average spend per transaction is A$5 and the maximum transaction allowed by most telcos is between $30 and $40."We are doing about half a million transactions a month," said Thorpe."All the telcos have this capability but they don't market it to third parties. It is a bit of an unknown payment solution."Thorpe said the value proposition for consumers was that the service was device agnostic and billing was handled very simply with one or two clicks.For merchants it appeals as an alternative distribution channel and it gives them more visibility in the market than they would have offering their product through an app store like iTunes.Mobile Embrace's payments platform, which is called Convey, will also handle payments using PayPal, Visa and MasterCard.Thorpe said: "A significant part of Telenor's subscriber base is in emerging markets, where carrier billing is particularly important because credit card penetration is low."Direct carrier billing can be used by anyone with a mobile phone."