Presently, residents of Norway. can pay for your services using SMS-messages as well. Thus, SmsCoin services are now available throughout Scandinavia. Expanding our activities geographically, we're constantly extending the spectrum of services offered as well as upgrading the level of service provided to our partners.

Due to constant changes in Rubles exchange rates on foreign exchange market, our partners' service experiences frequent technical problems caused by several reasons: website owners do not update the instructions on payment pages in time; do not make the necessary changes to rate scales, or do not pay attention that certain countries are excluded from the list of the available countries for chosen rate.

To avoid such problems, we've decided to make the payouts for the previous month according to rates of Central Bank of Russia on the 1st of the following month. This will not only solve the above-mentioned problems but will provide stability as well, minimizing the losses due to fluctuations on foreign exchange markets. We did a preliminary recount of ruble earnings in your accounts today so that you won't be taken by surprise by the scheduled payout on February 1st. This adjustment is planned for period of 3-4 month following which ruble exchange rate stabilization is expected. As soon as Central Bank of Russia will establish a fixed ruble rate we will return to previous payout scheme. SmsCoin staff closely monitor the changes both in Russian and worldwide economy, and do everything in their power to prevent any serious damage which might be caused to our partners' earnings by financial crisis.

Starting 23.12.2008 and onward the rate of SMS-messages, sent from mobile phones connected to Ukraine mobile carriers as well as the partners' payouts based on SMS-messages sent from Ukraine was changed to Ukraine national currency – hryvnia. Thus, we have fulfilled our commitment towards mobile carriers of this country which is to provide end-users with most accurate information regarding the cost of SMS-messages sent.

Besides, this measure allowed us to solve the problem with hryvnia exchange rate instability as oppose to other currencies which caused us to loose substantial share of revenues. Please note that due to severe hryvnia depreciation, the rates won't be similar to those you got used to at the moment of hryvnia to dollar conversion. Currently, the highest rate – 25 hryvnia (including VAT) worth approximately 2.64 US Dollars as oppose to previously known 4.75 US Dollars. Partners' payouts will be calculated the same as in other countries – based on dollar exchange rate (if paid to WebMoney – Z- account) or ruble exchange rate (if paid to WebMoney – R- account) on the day of payment.

We have increased partners' share percentage for SMS-messages sent from Ukraine as a means of compensation for unfortunate consequences of crisis in Ukraine characterized by the loss of convenient rate equals 5 standard units.

SmsCoin expands its activities in Eastern European area: from now on Albania residents can pay for your services. Currently, we can offer you only one rate – 120 Albanian lek (around 1.4 US Dollars) but we hope these news will cheer you up, taking into consideration that plenty of our partners are interested in connecting SMS-payment system across Eastern European countries to their services.

We trust that you will be able to take advantage of this Albanian rate, and we, on our part, will keep expanding the variety of short codes with different costs within various countries. This week, new rates became available in Croatia, Serbia and Netherlands. If those who use your services are the residents of theses countries, please make sure it is possible for you to use the price categories we have added lately.

Please note! As we promised, during the past week new short code in Ireland was activated. Furthermore, Danish short codewas changed. In case you don't use our standard instructions and have not yet installed automatic generation of payment instructions on your websites using xml- or json files – we urge you to update the short codes and rates for these two countries as soon as possible according to xml-file of each and every service.

This autumn was quite intense in the SMS services market: large-scale financial problems, delayed payouts, old companies closing and new companies urgent openings. In light of the financial crisis, such events might seem insignificant but one cannot deny the impact on global RUnet business sphere. The leaders of this market, and their partners made their conclusions, even though they might differ completely.

Following the business trip to Russia, where discussions were held with a majority of leaders in SMS-services market, and significant partners of our company, SmsCoin management realized that mobile services market in general and SMS-payments in particular will undergo additional cataclysms and the only companies to survive it are these with accurate policies and operating in cooperation with the market as oppose to working against it and its participants. We are happy to say that vast majority of our colleges agree with us on this standpoint, taking measures to stabilize the situation. Perhaps not measures taken are acceptable due to dishonest actions of certain companies. Sudden changes in dollar exchange rate and too frequent “temporary” problems are raising doubts among others. Other measures are more or less honest but less popular such as partners' payouts decrease or payout period prolongation. There is always the fear of losing partners to competitor with much more attractive terms. However, recent example has proved that attractive terms doesn't always mean stable foundations.

We are confident in our abilities and has proved not once that we are operating on accurate policy and fair competition, earning the respect of our partners and competitors alike. We took a decision to be the first ones to announce the measure which will help us and the market as well to overcome difficult period ahead. The worst affect on the market is caused by enormous payouts and much shorter payout period. Enormous payouts are as a result of dumping politics, and shorter payout period has to do with partners' distrust in partnership programs, or in some cases, with illegal actions of the partners themselves who wish to receive the amounts earned dishonestly as soon as possible.

We announce the changes in partners' work conditions starting December 1st 2008:
1) Payouts made across Russia will be reduced by 5 percent for each and every new partner, who have registered later than 1.12.2008. Our long-time partners will continue working based on previous rates, given by us half a year ago within the framework of the commitment, when we exchanged the rates to rubles within Russia. Even though, we are open to discuss requests for individual terms;
2) The possibility to demand payout in the middle of the reported month is canceled. Nonetheless, we assure you that partners requests for early payment will be carefully considered, especially if it will be effectively used for project development. Precisely this idea was the basis for launching the payout system according to demand in June, but unfortunately, the current situation and this feature was often misused forced us to reconsider its necessity.
3) Terms of services presented to users are much more strict. We have always been strictly loyal to end-users upon which depends the entire market. Till December 1st we will publish a set of rules for those partners who who do not use our standard instructions. Violation of these rules may lead to a fine or to blocked account.

We assume that soon enough more companies on the market will follow us and announce the changes they have done, supporting us or contradicting our endeavors. We hope and believe that our partners will understand us. Those who often communicate with us, know that we do not give empty projections, and everything we do is aimed primarily for the benefit of our partners.

We would like to recommend our partners and everyone else in this market adopting similar measures. If you are an owner of partnership program, make sure that you are able to guarantee the payments. Make sure your project is profitable – it is possible your financial turnover is high, but you earn nothing. Company's staff is ready to answer any question you might have and to help you, even if you're not a partner of ours.

Highly respected partners!

We are proud to announce our achievement connecting additional countries. From now on SmsCoin is working with mobile carriers across 40 countries worldwide, and your services are now available to mobile network subscribers in vast majority of European continent. Today, two additional Eastern European countries were connected to our services - Serbia and Slovakian Republic. More Eastern European countries are soon to follow the above-mentioned ones.

Besides, we've succeeded in Ireland connection set-up based on substantially more attractive provisions for you. If previously the payouts made in Ireland accounted for 20% of the turnover, from now on you will receive 40% from each SMS excluding VAT.

We would like to ask you to pay attention to the changes in Spanish short codes rates.

We remind our partners who use their own static instructions, to update it manually according to changes on our website, unless it is done automatically already.

Dear partners and the guests of our project!

Due to growing attempts to prevent our support ICQ numbers from working properly using spam attacks, as well as in the purpose of improving the quality of customers support in general, we are switching to a new customer support system.

As you can see, a link to Live Chat displayed on our website. In case you have questions and you wish to discuss these with our support team in a live mode - please click this link. You'll reach the page where you will be offered to choose the department you wish to talk to: general questions, technical support, financial dept. You can present yourself by entering your name in appropriate field. We recommend our partners to enter the ID number as well, since it is often needed for further clarification.

In the future, we plan to connect to Live Chat system various protocols of popular messengers such as MSN, Jabber (including Google-talk) and ICQ so that it would be easier for you to contact us using your preferable providers.

In addition to above-mentioned, you're welcome to contact us using e-mail addresses, ICQ and telephone numbers you are use to, which are specified under “Contact us” section.

Highly respected partners!

As you have probably noticed, due to market situation dollar exchange rate is steadily increasing. Since the payouts made according to daily exchange rate of the dollar, we change it each day in our system according to the new exchange rate. The short code users send SMS-messages to could change accordingly, so that in the end you would receive the exact amount you specified, in dollars. If your user won't be notified and will send an SMS-message to incorrect short code, he will receive a reply message "Error. Invalid value." and won't be able to receive the service.

Owners of the services who use our standard solutions, do not have to worry about the rates scale changes and constantly updating the payment instructions on their websites. These instructions are generated automatically based on the information stored on our server in XML-file.

On the other hand, if you update SMS-message instructions manually, we urge you to automate the system of instructions update on your websites. Unlike most projects, we have a wide spectrum of possibilities to automate the process of issuing updated instructions to end-users, and strongly recommend you to use one of these. You can receive this information in XML or JSON formats from our server. Ideal solution would be to add to cron-file tasks list an hourly upload of rate scale file. In case of problems and / or questions please contact our technical support department. We are always happy to assist you with the implementation of various ideas to optimize the services, connected to our system.

While financial issues are being solved, SmsCoin developers has produced few improvements to make our partners' work more convenient.

Presently, 3 brand new parameters - billing, mcc and mnc, are passed over to services implemented on sms:transit basis. The first parameter represents the type of billing which processing the message, and determines whether the service should be immediately provided or needs payment conformation from additional processor. Previously, instructions contained written list of countries, which was inconvenient for automation process. The other two parameters represent international mobile codes of the country and of the carrier, and this is one more step towards international standards. Both of the parameters are available to vast majority of European countries, and soon will be available to all connected countries. Lists containing the codes could be found on our website under Terminology glossary.

For each and every services, where rates scale are available in XML format, an option of rates scale in JSON format was added. This format can be processed with various programming languages, and its greatest advantage is that JavaScript processing it as an array, which easily allows to generate instructions without reloading the page when you switch countries. For more detailed technical description visit our services section.

We've ceased usage of the short codes (numbers) dedicated to each mobile carrier in Latvia separately. We've put into usage common Latvian short code working in all mobile networks.

Please, make all necessary changes in your end user instructions.