In its simple form, Direct Carrier Billing - or DCB - allows consumers to pay for purchased items along with their phone bill. Mobile subscribers authenticate an online or a mobile transaction at the time of purchase, and a charge - equivalent to the item being purchased - is placed on their phone bills. Consumers pay their bills at the end of the month, and a few days (or weeks) after that, the merchant is paid by the mobile operator. Thus, by offering a convenient way to pay for purchased items, DCB helps to improve the customer's mobile commerce experience and can become a growth driver for the mobile payments industry.