Thanks to all of you that attended and participated in Mobile Money Canada on Tuesday November 10th. The event was a great success with representation from across the Canadian mobile money eco-system. If you missed out on the event, no need to worry! The following is an overview of what took place.

Thanks to all of you that attended and participated in Mobile Money Canada on Tuesday November 10th. The event was a great success with representation from across the Canadian mobile money eco-system.

If you missed out on the event, no need to worry!  Below is an overview of what took place. Furthermore, the slide presentations and video footage of the sessions will be posted to the Mobile Money Canada website in the coming days – so you can get caught up on everything that took place!

The objectives for the Mobile Money Canada conference were three-fold:

1. Stimulate the growth of a nascent, but promising, Mobile Money industry in Canada
2. Educate business and technology execs that have a need to know about Mobile Money
3. Showcase the leading Canadian mobile money services and technology vendors serving the market

1. Why Will Mobile Financial Services Matter to Canadians?, presented by Aran Hamilton, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Enstream
2. The Business Case & ROI for Mobile Banking, presented by Matt Krogstad, VP Business Development at M-Com
3. The first billion customers is always the hardest, presented by Tom Purves, Business Leader, Product Innovation at Visa Inc.
4. Mobile Banking - Criteria & Tools for achieving success, presented by Joe Salesky, Founder, Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer at ClairMail

• Patrick Kelly, SVP, Business Development, Monitise Americas
• Matt Krogstad, VP Business Development, M-Com
• Eric Feeley, Director of Product Management, Telepin
• Joe Salesky, Founder, Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer, ClairMail
• Christopher Dean, Associate, Western Union Digital Ventures
• Long Van, Mobile Financial Services Solution Architect, DonRiver Inc.
• JP Kamel, Excellis Consulting
• Thomas Purves, Business Leader, Product Innovation, Visa Inc.
• Jason Hurlbut, Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Business Development, CPNI
• Frank Maduri, President, MTAC Group
• Aran Hamilton VP of Strategic Partnerships, Enstream
• Amar Varma, Extreme Venture Partners
• Hesham Fahmy, Mobile Financial Services Solution Architect, DonRiver Inc.
• Anant Tailor, Mobile Financial Services Delivery Lead, DonRiver Inc.
• Brent Ho-Young, Managing Director, DonRiver Inc.

• As mobile technology continuously improves, mobile phones are breaking down boundaries and consumers want the ability to do more with their phones. The Canadian market is no exception, especially with a high penetration of smart phones
• Mobile Financial Service offerings should focus on simplifying the everyday consumer experience
• The Canadian market has a high penetration rate for online banking. Therefore mobile acceptance must work in conjunction with the online channel to provide a unified customer experience
• The mobile user experience needs to be simple in design and use so that it reduces confusion and requires minimal consumer education. Consumer confusion / frustration is a huge risk to mobile financial services
• Make it easy for users to register for mobile money services, and don’t limit registration to only those segments that have access to online channels
• Mobile Banking provides an opportunity for banks to attract and reach new customer segments
• Security is one of the largest concerns for consumers when using Mobile Banking – therefore this should be addressed by banks to maximize success
• Similar to banking security best practices, all levels of security should examined and implemented for mobile money applications. One thing to note is that mobile money services can be segregated into two groups, informational and transactional. Informational services can be implemented with lower security levels due to its non-monetary nature, thus, a reduced risk factor. Transactional services should consider higher levels of security to ensure the customer is protected from phishing attacks and identity theft
• Operational considerations and costs should not be overlooked in planning a mobile banking roll-out. Particularly CSR training / education, legacy system updates, and support procedures
• It isn’t necessary to implement a consistent look & feel across all target market offerings. For instance, SMS can be leveraged for informational services such as alerts and notifications whereas rich java applications can be developed for banking services such as bill payment, and money transfer functions
• There was a consensus that both carriers and banks offer unique benefits to the mobile financial ecosystem and that the industry should be forward looking in realizing that a lot more opportunities for service innovation can be realized if both parties collaborate
• It was pointed out that the consumer should be the prime focus in determining the right service model as ultimately it is the consumer that must benefit in order for there to be success. When the consumer benefits then there will be tangible benefits to all parties in the ecosystem. As a result, operators and carriers should not attempt to implement a Bank or Mobile centric model but rather start from the consumer up and determine what hybrid model best suits their needs. This will differ from market to market which is why we see different success stories in various countries around the globe.
• There should not be any confusion on how banks & operators both cooperate and compete in this space. The analogy was drawn to technology vendors that compete on emerging technologies, whereby they collaborate on matters that impede progress of the industry (by creating industry standards and standards bodies) and compete in areas where they can differentiate themselves. Likewise banks and operators must cooperate to establish common industry standards and interoperability for mobile financial services. Once this is done the industry as a whole can progress and the various players can begin to differentiate themselves with value added services, pricing, and incentives, etc.
• Banks should participate in remittances since they provide a new source of revenue, serve to deepen existing customer relationships, and can also lead to new customer acquisitions
• NFC momentum is continuing to accelerate within Canada