In Australia this is how you used to top-up prepaid phones with a credit card or check your balance. You can probably still use SIM applications to do it now but it seems to be mostly replaced by web portals.
Yeah. Telstra prepaid still do the phone driven menu, where you "call" a number, but instead of voice a text menu pops up on your phone. It's quite nice actually. I think they're called USSD menus?