A method is provided for a mobile telephone users to pay small individual
fees for certain content when surfing the Internet using a mobile
telephone terminal, for example, a WAP-enabled terminal. The method
establishes a payment gateway which is accessible by the mobile telephone
Internet user via the mobile telephone terminal and by a provider via a
provider server. Customer data of the user is held securely in a database
of the payment gateway and is not transmitted over the Internet or held
in the mobile terminal. A micropayment account opened at a bank is
synchronized continuously with the payment gateway. To provide payment of
fees for content, a reservation of a certain amount is made in the
payment account via the payment gateway and is authorized by the user to
the provider allowing the provider to debit amounts against the
reservation. Actual charges are transmitted from the provider to the
payment gateway and allocated against the reservation debiting the
amounts from the micropayment account, crediting the provider and
canceling the reserved amount.