Top Mobile Money Deals & Developments in June 2009
Mobile-Financial.com
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - 18:09
June 2009 was an extremely active month in the Mobile Financial Services industry. To help you keep track of all of the deals and developments that happened during the month, Mobile-Financial.com has launched its “Mobile Financial Deals & Developments Tracker”.
Our tracker will provide you with a re-cap of the top developments that occurred within the past month, including company and product launches, regulatory advancements, mergers & alliances, and much more.
So let’s get to it. Here’s the re-cap. Let us know if we have missed something. Also, if you haven’t done so yet, please click here to sign up for our daily email newsletter. We’ll email you with the top Mobile Financial news stories as they happen.
The
GSMA Mobile Money Summit took place June 22-25 2009 in Barcelona,
Spain. Mobile-Financial.com attended the event and we can firmly say
that for those working in the Mobile Financial space, this was THE place to be this month.
The summit brought together
approximately 400 leaders within the Mobile Money industry, including
Mobile Network Operators, Banks, Regulators, Remittances Providers,
Technology Vendors, and Consultancies. The Mobile Money team from the
GSMA provided up to the minute coverage of the summit. For a summary of the key sessions, please click here.
I
personally found the summit valuable as most of the speakers were great
and shared detailed information about how their mobile money rollouts
were working out. In addition, since this industry is a small but
growing one, almost all attendees were very approachable and interested
in networking and discussing collaboration opportunities.
If
you missed this year's event, make sure to put it on your calendar for
next year. If you are working in the space, it's pretty much a must
attend event.
At the GSMA Mobile Money Summit in Barcelona in June, Zain and Western
Union announced an alliance to deliver cross border mobile remittances
to Zain's Zap mobile money customers. This is an important deal for
not only the companies involved, but more importantly for customers.
Customers of Zain's Zap service will be able to receive Western Union
money transfers directly against their mobile wallet. Customers will
not need to pick up funds at a physical agent or brink & mortar
location. The official press release describes the alliance and service as follows:
"Once the service is launched with
Zain, consumers will be able to send cash money transfers from
participating Western Union® locations around the globe in
the same way they do today. Zap customers who are enrolled in the
service in select countries will be able to choose whether they want to
receive their money in cash at a Western Union Agent location or in
accounts tied to their mobile phones (their “mobile wallets”). Money-transfer receivers who receive funds in their mobile wallets will
be able to pay bills, buy airtime or cash out through the Zap service
at more than 12,000 Zap agent locations in East Africa. "
In our view, the benefits to Zain, Western Union, and both
companies' customers are significant. Zain will benefit from now being
able to tap into the world's largest remittance network and deposit
transferred funds directly against their customer's mobile Zap wallets.
Once integrated to Western Union, Zain will achieve a near global
remittance footprint for its Zap customers. Zap will not need to invest in
a country by country send market remittance build out, including the
associated systems and regulatory requirements that would need to be
complied to in each send market - Western Union already takes care of this..
Western Union will
benefit through continuing to grow its mobile money channel, with
remitted funds being credited to receiver's mobile wallets. Western
Union has expressed mobile money is a significant element of its global
distribution focus and integrating Zap mobile wallets into its
remittance network fully supports this strategy. Customers,
particularly in the developing world want mobile money services (as
evidenced by what's happening in Kenya with Safaricom). The Zain and
Western Union alliance really appears to be meeting this need.
Canada's
Mobile Financial Services industry took a revolutionary LEAP forward in
June with the launch of the country's first ever, cross Mobile Network
Operator, Mobile Payment service called Zoompass. The Zooompass
service allows subscribers to use their mobile phone to make purchases,
transfer money, pay bills etc. Zoompass is available as a native app
for many phones and alslo provides a WAP browser.
The service
can also be coupled with a pre-paid debit card (Mastercard) which
supports its tap and go "PayPass" contactless payments. The launch of
this service is significant because it represents one of the first time
in the world where Mobile Network Operators have come togethether to
collaborate and create a mobile financial offering for consumers. For
more info, please click here.
Visa and Monitise announced in June that they have developed a strategic alliance to "to facilitate the delivery of Visa mobile payments
and related services to consumers around the world." The
alliance will see Visa putting up about $13M USD, obtain a minitory
equity stake in Monitise, and the companies jointly providing Visa
based mobile money services to customers around the globe through
Monitise's Mobile Money platform.
Visa is the largest
electrnoic payments company in the world, but for those that are
unfamiliar with Monitise, Monitise is a mobile money/banking provider
that focuses on providing mobile money services to financial
institutions. In a nutshell, Monitise helps open a mobile channel to
customers for banks, ATM networks, and related financial institutions.
The company is a significant player in the Mobile Money space with
customers and partners that include VocaLink, Metavante, HSBC, Lloyds
TSB, first direct,
Alliance & Leicester, Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Vodafone,
Orange, O2, T-Mobile and 3.
The alliance is vitally important
for both companies. For Visa is provides them access to proven mobile
money technology and solutions, in live, market tested engagements.
For Monitise, landing a
sizeable amount of financial capital, particularly in this economic environment,
is a definite win to help fund growth. In addition, Monitize has the
potential to reach Visa's massive card holding customer market with Visa
optimized and promoted mobile payment services.
Here's what the Monitise Chief Executive, Alastair Lukies had to say about the deal "Visa is the world's leading, innovative payments system. This alliance
validates our unwavering commitment to building truly accessible,
inclusive and reliable services. It is a landmark announcement in the
mobile payment space and we are excited to collaborate with the world's
foremost payments company to accelerate the convergence of payments
services and mobile devices."
This
one probably does not qualify as major Mobile Money "Deal News",
however it represents a valuable opportunity for all those working in
the Mobile Banking space. On June 25th, M-Com and Fiserv collaborated
to present a webinar on Mobile Banking. The webinar provided attendees with information to help banking decision makers define a Mobile Banking & Payment strategy
that can realize the needed ROI to justify the financial invesment and
risks involved with such initiatives. The agenda of the webinar was
the following:
1 – Consumer demand for mobile banking and payments, including demographic data
2 – Lessons from Online Banking for the mobile channel
3 – Reducing Costs through mobile financial services
4 – New Revenue opportunities from mobile payments
5 – Putting together a business for investing in the mobile channel
6 – The industry’s most complete ROI model for quantifying the value of the mobile channel
The
webinar was free and if you missed it, feel free to reach out to the
M-Com Head of Marketing, Serge van Dam, to get an overview. Serge can be
reaced at: Serge.vanDam@mcom.co.nz
Firethorn
Holdings, LLC, a Qualcomm company, announced that its mobile banking and payment security capabilities adhere to the
Mobile Financial Services industry's "benchmark for secure credit card
transactions - the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard
(DSS)."
While this may not be a major development for the overall
industry, Mobile-Financial.com feels that it is important for all
players within our industry to strive to build and operate solutions
that will protect the finances and data of customers and
ecosystem partners. We applaud Firethorn for the hard work and
substantial investment required to align to the significant requirements of PCI.
For those that are evaluating mobile money vendor solutions, PCI
standards adherence or similar should be on your vendor checklist.
So overall, June
was a packed month with developments in the Mobile Financial Services
space. We are looking forward to what July, and the rest of the year
for that matter, has in store.
Here are a few of the other key
developments that took place in June:
Article
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At the GSMA Mobile Money Summit in Barcelona in June, Zain and Western
Union announced an alliance to deliver cross border mobile remittances
to Zain's Zap mobile money customers. This is an important deal for
not only the companies involved, but more importantly for customers.
Customers of Zain's Zap service will be able to receive Western Union
money transfers directly against their mobile wallet. Customers will
not need to pick up funds at a physical agent or brink & mortar
location. 
Canada's
Mobile Financial Services industry took a revolutionary LEAP forward in
June with the launch of the country's first ever, cross Mobile Network
Operator, Mobile Payment service called Zoompass. The Zooompass
service allows subscribers to use their mobile phone to make purchases,
transfer money, pay bills etc. Zoompass is available as a native app
for many phones and alslo provides a WAP browser.
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