Vodafone has followed O2 in reducing the cut it takes from text donations to charity so that the beneficiary charity will receive 90 per cent.

All Vodafone and O2 customers donating £1 to charity can now be assured that 90p will reach the organisation, after the mobile phone operator has taken its cut.

Joe Saxton, former chair of the Institute of Fundraising, who revived the campaign for fairer text donations after previous attempts by the sector had stalled, described Vodafone’s decision as fantastic news.

“In the last 18 months we have seen VAT dropped, the introduction of short-codes for charities and now rates are coming down,” he said.

In early April, Saxton said, the rates of all the major mobile phone companies would be published in a league table to show which are the most generous.

O2, the UK’s biggest mobile operator, decided to drop its charges and pass on 90 per cent of donations last November, after the Institute and Charities Aid Foundation wrote to the chief executives of all the mobile phone companies requesting that they cut charges to a flat rate of 10p regardless of the size of the donation.