International Mobile Banking Updates - Jan 11

IBM's Social Innovation Is Supporting 'Smarter Banking' In Kenya
"IBM is helping Kenyan sugar cane cutters through its social innovation support of a mobile banking system. It enables these workers to earn more money. Normally, a sugar cane farm would have to shut down for two or three days a month to enable its cane cutters to travel to a bank branch and wait in a long queue to deposit their pay. Now, with the introduction of mobile banking, the cane cutters can keep working and monitor their pay deposit on their phones. The mobile banking also allows them to access cash from local agents, buy at local shops and transfer money to others."

Mobile money breakthrough predicted for Jamaica
"An American economist is predicting that the introduction of mobile money services in Jamaica will find a ready market because of the scarcity of user-friendly financial services on the island. The economist, Dr Dawn Elliott, made the forecast based on a survey which found that only a fraction of the Jamaican population has access to financial services, which limits their participation in the economy."

Top 10 Posts from the CGAP Technology Blog in 2011
"One of the exciting and yet challenging aspects of the branchless banking industry is how fast things change. Topics discussed just 3 months ago can seem out of date today. That’s why it’s fun to look back over the topics we blogged about in 2011 starting from last January to see how the discussion has evolved over the last 12 months. Here are just a few of the blogs you may have missed or you may be interested in reading again:"

Mobile Banking - International Updates

Japan’s DOCOMO to Launch Mobile Payments Service
"Customers of DOCOMO’s i-mode™ mobile Internet service on the FOMA™ 3G network will be able to remit up to 20,000 yen (about 208 U.S. dollars) per transfer, basically just by inputting the payee’s mobile phone number."

Emirates NBD & Etisalat collaborate to launch Mobile Banking
"Emirates NBD the largest bank in terms of assets within the region will partner with Etisalat to launch a new state-of-the-art mobile banking service. This new service will offer customers the convenience of banking on the move. Customers will be able to make account balance inquiries, transfer funds, pay their credit card bills and make payments to Etisalat, RTA, Fly Dubai, FEWA, and more others."

Mobile Money World Conference 2009
"Mobile Money World Conference 2009 will be held on 29 to 30 July 2009 in New Delhi, India to discuss on strategies to develop the best business model and new business partnership in delivering mobile financial services to the mass market."

The Hype Cycle and Mobile Banking, 2009
"Just over a year ago in Cairo, we convened the first Mobile Money Summit with our friends at the GSMA, DFID and IFC. The diversity of the crowd was fantastic - people from all over the world and all sorts of business - from mobile network operators to vendors to financial institutions. It might sound corny, but Hannes Van Rensburg captured the mood quite well: “A general spirit of: ‘Let’s build the industry’ rather than criticise each other prevailed.” (Mobile Payments have arrived)"

Mobile Banking Updates - Jun 15

Safest Way to Bank Online? Your Cell Phone
"So you want to bank safely online? Then ditch your computer and make the transaction via your cell phone instead. Using a mobile handset for this most sensitive online act might sound counterintuitive, given that phones are prone to being lost or stolen, but your cell phone might actually be safer than your computer for paying bills or checking your statement online."

Mobile Money Substituted For Banking In Developing Nations
"The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a microfinance group working to expand access to financial services for the poor in developing countries, says that mobile financial services will be offered to the poor people in burgeoning markets. They believe that the increase in mobile coverage is responsible for this growth. This would mean that over a billion people in the developing world would have access to a mobile phone, but not to a bank account. The CGAP expects this number to hit 1.7 billion by 2012, with approximately one in five using mobile money, thus creating the $5 billion market."

Mobile Banking Updates - Feb 18

Monitise Gets Mobile Banking Grant to Expand in East Africa
"UK based Mobile Banking provider, Monitise says that it has been awarded US$1.5 million by the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) to help fund the launch of its mobile banking and payments service in East Africa."

Mitek Systems Reports Operating Results for First Quarter of Fiscal 2009
"Mitek Systems, Inc., an innovator of image analytics and mobile document capture applications, today announced financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 ended December 31, 2008."

West wakes up to banking via mobile phone
"Alastair Lukies, the co-founder and chief executive of Monitise, which has created a cross-network mobile banking platform, says that during a recession people want to have constant access to their accounts.'If you're a fund manager, do you really need to check your balance? Well, probably not,' he said. 'But many people out there do. Mobile banking is like an umbilical cord.'”

Kenya, Turkey, Japan lead mobile money trend
"'All the pieces are coming into place for mobile banking to transform the way some 1.5 billion people get banking services in emerging markets,' said Elizabeth Littlefield, head of CGAP, a policy and research center seeking to improve financial access for the world's poor. In Kenya, 5 million people have signed up in less than two years to use Safaricom's M-Pesa service, which enables people to send money to each other."

Mobile Banking Updates - Feb 15

INSIDE Contactless Working With Qualcomm to Accelerate NFC Mobile Handset Rollouts
"'This alliance is significant not only for our MicroRead NFC solution, but for NFC technology and the mobile payments market in general. We believe the availability of these reference designs will provide a significant boost to the deployment of NFC-enabled 3G handsets worldwide,' said Rémy de Tonnac, chief executive officer of INSIDE Contactless. 'We look forward to creating these reference designs with Qualcomm and contributing our expertise and ideas to further the development of the emerging NFC ecosystem.'"

Symbian Foundation recruits more supporters
"The not-for-profit organisation - which has been set up to unify Symbian, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) software; and administer, oversee and develop the resulting Symbian mobile OS in its altered open source state - has added a further 14 voices of support to its endeavour. These include Bank of America, HP, MySpace, Qualcomm and SanDisc."

UK government throws more money at banking (this time it's mobile)
"The International Development Secretary will set out how modern technology is transforming the way banks work in the 21st century and explain that this could benefit the developing world most, with people gaining access to financial services for the first time ever."

Co-Op Financial Services unveils mobile banking, contactless card payments solutions
"CO-OP Financial Services is now offering credit unions a turnkey entry into mobile banking and contactless card payments, according to a news release. CO-OP announced its mobile banking offering in Oct. 2008, with the selection of mFoundry's financial services platform to deliver mobile banking offerings to credit unions via a downloadable client application."

Mobile Banking: Fact or Fiction?
"It doesn't take much imagination to see how mobile phones can improve the way we manage money and make payments...This leads me to my next point: Haven't we been here before? Didn't customers already tell us they are not interested in mobile banking?"

Mobile money in tough times: still a good bet for operators?
"The global economy is sliding. The OECD predicts 2009 will be the worst year for the world economy since 1974. The mobile industry is already feeling the effects. Operator revenues grew by 5% in 2008, down nearly half from 2009, and are expected to soften further to 4.5% in 2009, according to Wireless Intelligence. And this is on top of the continual slide in ARPU (average revenue per user) which emerging market operators have seen for several years, as they pick up customers who are now disproportionately lower income. What does mean for mobile financial services?"

Mobile Banking Updates - Sept 28

The last 7 days have been very active in the mobile banking arena. Here's a summary:

Lloyds TSB mobile banking goes beyond text
"Lloyds TSB has added a slew of features to its mobile banking service. From mid-October, Lloyds customers will be able to view their banking details, move money around their own accounts and receive text message alerts on their phone."

Google Android: Can it take on the iPhone?
"How significant is the launch of Google's new mobile phone? And does it have enough to take on the iPhone, asks Claudine Beaumont"

Paying for your eBay items with PayPal just got easier
"It's finally happened! You can now pay for all your eBay items with PayPal via your mobile anywhere, anytime*."

CGAP at the Clinton Global Initiative’s Mobile Banking Call to Action
"Today, CGAP is announcing a new effort around mobile banking to identify, fund, research and champion technology enabled banking services for 25 million people in 20 countries. CGAP CEO Elizabeth Littlefield will announce the plan at the Clinton Global Initiative’s “Mobile Banking Call to Action.”

ClairMail to Power Mobile Banking for Texas-based City Bank
"ClairMail has announced that City Bank, a locally owned and operated community bank in Texas, has selected ClairMail to power its new mobile banking offering."

Visa Expands Mobile Banking Trials to Nokia, Android
"Visa today announced a variety of mobile banking tests for U.S. customers. The tests focus on mobile payments and money transfer, which are already available in many other countries, particularly in Eastern Asia."

Sprint offers mobile banking application
"Sprint Nextel announced Thursday a new downloadable application that will let its subscribers bank and pay bills from their cell phones. The new application called MyMoneyManager will provide online banking access to accounts with BB&T, Citibank, IBC Bank and PNC Bank. Subscribers with accounts at these banks will be able to check balances, pay bills, and find nearby branches with ATMs using the application on their phone. Sprint subscribers must have a Web-enabled phone and a wireless data plan to access the service."