International Mobile Banking Updates - May 30

Mobile banking on USSD likely to get delayed
"Full-scale mobile banking services over the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platform, a text message-based interactive backbone could hit a roadblock with both GSM and CDMA operators at loggerheads with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on the revenue-sharing model."

Bank Muscat’s mBanking wins best mobile payment app in ME award
"Bank Muscat, the flagship financial services provider in the Sultanate, has won the ‘Best Mobile Payment Application in the Middle East’ award for its state-of-the-art mBanking mobile services. The prestigious award was received by Tariq Atiq, AGM — Cards & eBanking, at a ceremony held in Dubai as part of the Cards & Payments 2013 Middle East seminar, which is reckoned the largest cards payment and identification event in the Middle East."

Mobile banking changing Africa’s financial landscape
"COMMUNICATIONS technology is reshaping Africa with more people on the continent using their mobile phone to bankthan in any other region in the world, reports Africa in Fact. It says mobile phone technology is especially useful in banking where many people live in rural areas far from cities where most banks are located. Kenya is the global model for this innovative use of mobile banking technology but the report notes, the potential for mobile banking in Nigeria is immense, mostly because of the size of its population (Africa's largest), and the size of its unbanked population."

Leading Vietnamese Bank Reaches New Clients with IBM Smarter Computing
"At today's (NYSE: IBM) Technology Conference and Exhibition in Hanoi, IBM announced that Saigon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank, one of the leading commercial banks in Vietnam, has turned to IBM Systems and Software to streamline business processes across its IT infrastructure and enable broader client reach through new online and mobile banking services."

Mobile banking remains “promising land” for banks
"Experts believe that mobile banking would enter the hot development period in the time to come, when the number of smart phone users increases rapidly. A report says that 50 percent of the mobile phones to be sold in the future would be smart phones. Le Thanh Tam, Chief Executive Officer of IDG ASEAN said he can see the great potentials for developing electronic payment, believing that 98 percent of Vietnamese would use mobile banking services in the next five years."

Second RBS apology for banking app glitch
"RBS has apologised for the second time in two months after customers were unable to log in to their accounts through their mobile phone app. Many customers of the RBS Group, which includes NatWest and Ulster Bank, were unable to use the app for two and a half hours on Friday. A similar problem occurred at the end of March, when the app's users were unable to check their accounts. RBS is 81% owned by the taxpayer. About two million customers have the app."