Western Union is certifying mobile platform vendors to reduce integration costs and accelerate go-to-market activities forbanks and mobile operators by creating standard technical deployments. Once a bank or mobile operator contracts with Western Union to activate the Western Union® Mobile Money Transfer service, its consumers will be able to send and/or receive money through Western Union’s global money transfer system, connected to more than 334,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories.

The GSM Association, a global trade association representing more than 750 mobile operators worldwide, gave its endorsement for a global pilot program to Western Union when it entered the mobile finance space in the second quarter of 2008. Four mobile finance platform providers such as South Africa-based Fundamo, India-based mChek, U.S.-basedSybase 365 and Singapore-based Utiba Pte with both active and planned service implementations are the first providers to join the certification program.

Initial program participants include:

Fundamo has some 40 deployments in over 30 countries, including 27 countries in Africa and the Middle East and another 10 globally.

mChek offers a hosted service for Mobile Money Transfer and secure payments using credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts and stored-value wallets.

Sybase 365 addresses end-to-end mobile commerce opportunities in mobile banking, mobile payments and mobile remittances in both developed and emerging markets – enabling end customers to pay, buy, bank and remit money with amobile device.

Utiba products are intended to provide mobile transaction and payment solutions to banks, mobile operators, microfinanceinstitutions and payment service providers.