International Mobile Banking - May 22

Mobile payment on the way, but who’s driving the bus?
"The Canadian Bankers Association announced on Monday what amounts to the next step in the evolution of how Canadians buy stuff. Sometime soon — details are not provided — we will be able to buy stuff in stores with a mobile phone thanks to a new set of common guidelines over how electronic information is exchanged agreed to by the country’s big banks and credit unions. It is hoped that the guidelines will pave the way for a transformation in the way Canadians interact with retailers, an acknowledgement of the growing importance of smartphones in the way we live our lives."

Commonwealth taps into mobile banking
"Commonwealth Bank Indonesia, a subsidiary of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, is tapping into the growing mobile-phone banking market in the country as the total number of middle-class consumers continues to expand in the largest economy in Southeast Asia. 'Up to 80 percent of [the Indonesian] population is younger than 40 years old, 35 percent of them use social media. If you look at the way people interact and travel in Indonesia, mobile phones play a key part,' Commonwealth Bank Indonesia’s director of retail and business banking, Ian Phillip Whitehead, said in Singapore on Friday."

Firstly in Georgia – mobile banking for iPhone and Android
"In May 15, 2012, 13:00 PM, TBC Bank will open its new branch on Vaja-Pshavela avenue 49 and will present the most comfortable and ultramodern distance banking service – special versions of mobile banking for iPhones and Androids. Mobile Bank applications will be presented by Vakhtang Butskhrikidze, CEO. TBC is the first bank in Georgia to offer its customers mobile bank applications on Apple Store which could be downloaded and used from 7th of May, 2012. More than 400 customers already use TBC’s mobile bank applications. Applications for Android phones are also ready and will be available almost immediately."

Can mobile banking boost financial inclusion in Nigeria? "Nigeria’s telecommunications sector has been one of the country’s star performers over the past decade. According to Standard Bank, Nigeria is already the world’s tenth-largest mobile market. South African mobile operator MTN closely studied the Nigerian market for three years before it entered the country in 2001. Today MTN Nigeria has over 40 million subscribers, its biggest market out of the 21 countries where it operates. Many other brands such as Glo, Airtel and Etisalat have also launched operations in Nigeria."

How mobile banking can help Asia's poor
"The iPhone has become a symbol of something Steve Jobs never envisioned: Chinese sweatshops. Any of us (full disclosure: This includes me) who use one of Apple's smartphones, iPads or iPods is, at least indirectly, supporting the exploitation of electronics factory workers in China. Yet, what if the iPhone is a key to ending the poverty that forces so many Asians to toil in such abhorrent conditions?"

Rogers and CIBC make joint deal for NFC mobile payments in Canada, let you check out with your BlackBerry
"Canadians sometimes can't catch a break: while NFC payments have been relatively common for Americans, Europeans and certainly the Japanese, Canucks have had to largely make do paying with ye olde credit carde. Rogers and national bank CIBC want to put an end to these antediluvian ways: starting later this year, CIBC card holders will just need to swipe an NFC-equipped BlackBerry like the Bold 9900 (Bold 9930 for CDMA-loving Americans) at a matching terminal to pay at a given store. The only special requirement is a secure SIM card that gives customers the freedom to change phones, even if it does create problems switching banks or carriers down the line. We're just hoping that Android and other platforms get the same treatment and let more of our Canadian friends pay for poutine that much faster."

Out of Africa: Trade, Technology, and Knowledge—Part 2, Mobile Wallet and Banking Revolution
"Greater information technology share and investment through regional and South-South relationships is ushering the growth of an information technology revolution in Africa. This burgeoning African information technology revolution is not just limited to cyber cafes, media and online university level courses, but it is also allowing Africans to leap frog in the application and use of mobile phones. While energy and infrastructure constraints provide challenges to the growth of this industry, approximately 70 percent of Africans have a mobile phone. Mobile phones are being used to overcome challenges greater than the basic day-to-day needs. They have been crucial in allowing an increase of media access, medical doctors to see patients from a distance (particularly in remote villages), and mobile banking. I spoke about these opportunities and some creative ways of using mobile banking technology with Beamit CEO Matt Oppenheimer."

Barclays Pingit Mobile Banking (UK Only)
"It was with great surprise that I saw Barclays Pingit being advertised whilst watching Food Network UK this morning. This app allows users to send money to and from each other via their mobile phone numbers. I’m not sure if you folks in the United States have something similar — although I seriously suspect that you do and have had such a thing for months if not years before us. But this app, in my opinion certainly, has the ability to change how we use money."

India’s Mobile Banking Ekosystem
"Mobile banking is just one of the reasons India is a place to watch for innovations in financial inclusion. This short film profiles one such innovation, Eko, to see how businesses chasing the fortune at the base of the pyramid are serving the needs of poor customers in India. Five years’ ago, Abhishek and Abhinav Sinha created a software program that allows migrant workers in cities across India to send money to their families using a cellphone. Now their company, Eko Financial Services Ltd., is working with two major banks, the State Bank of India and ICICI, India’s second largest bank, to offer financial services to poor and low income customers using local corner stores, pharmacies, and airtime resellers as agents."

Mobile banking takes off in Rwanda
"BANKS IN Rwanda are turning to mobile phones in an effort to improve service delivery and cut costs as competition intensifies. It is now possible to pay electricity bills, top up airtime, order cheque books, pay DSTV bills and transfer money using a mobile phone. This is in sharp contrast to two years ago, when banks in Kigali limited mobile banking to basic transactions such as checking the account balance and getting financial statements."