Mobile Banking Updates - Aug 9

Zoompass Mobile App for iPhone is Here
"Like all mobile phone users, iPhone users have always been able to use the browser on their phone to access their Zoompass account. But now you can use a dedicated application to access your Zoompass account through your iPhone anytime, anywhere. Instantly send and receive money, request money, check your account balance, track transactions, and more! The Zoompass app for iPhone has a nifty contact manager to help you sync your Zoompass account with the contacts already in your iPhone so you can Zoom money to anyone in your address book with just a few keystrokes."

A Look at Obopay: Mobile Payments Pioneer is Sticking to Its Knitting
"Obopay’s solution allows consumers to make payments to other consumers, by sending an SMS message with their mobile phones. Obopay operates on either a prepaid basis (you fund an Obopay account, and then send funds out of that account) or on a transactional basis – each outbound payment is separately funded. In the prepaid case, funding can be either by credit or debit card, or by an ACH transaction “pulled” from your bank account. The transactional basis requires credit or debit card funding."

Dispatch from Tanzania: Informal Value Transfers via Mobile
"These past few weeks we’ve been focused on Tanzania’s experience with mobile banking. We’re not alone. Gunnar Camner and Emil Sjöblom recently spent three months in Tanzania for their master’s thesis in Media Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. Their study attempts to investigate mobile banking services from a user perspective. In which contexts do alternative uses, e.g. savings, become popular and why? The final report will be presented during autumn 2009 and made available at the project blog: http://valuablebits.com. Meanwhile, they sent us this dispatch."

City University Ploughs £135K into Mobile Banking
"£135,000 of funding has been provided to City University London from the Government’s UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI). The university has a team of the university’s informatics and engineering specialists who intend to use the funds to develop new and improved security measures to mobile banking"

ECIC Holdings, Lime to launch mobile banking services in the Caribbean
"Caribbean telecommunications operator Lime, a subsidiary of the British-based company Cable & Wireless, has partnered with a number of local financial services providers to launch a mobile banking service, online news outlet sknvibes.com reports."