Tag: mobile money

Sweden’s Mobile Wallet

Funny old world this. I haven’t written about operators for a while until last week. And here I am again. They seem to be coming in pairs…

Anyway, there were reports today on an initiative of the four Swedish mobile network operators, namely Telia, Tele2, Telenor and 3. They formed a joint venture (with the witty name 4T), which will deliver (not directly but via PayEx and Accumulate) a unified mobile wallet to at least 97% of all Swedish subscribers on launch.

Older services such as Gallerie in France and Payforit in the UK never really hit it, as ME points out, arguably because of the use of WAP (*shiver*), which was the only available carrier for such services at the time. This time around, it will all be different, we hear, with all handsets from 2006 onwards being supported. The one thing that is not so clear is the technology used… The system is apparently ready for NFC (which I find uber-exciting).

What will be more exciting to users than some tech stats is the fact that the system will be able to handle online, peer-to-peer and man-to-machine transactions (presumably also for women). So rather than with cash or cards, you will be able to pay with your mobile (something predicted by Forbes’ #1 mobile influencer, Tomi Ahonen, for years of course).

The service will also have the same look-and-feel (and the same name!) irrespective of the carrier, which will do a lot to instill consumer trust (as well as avoiding to erect any unnecessary barriers to switch carriers).

All in all, very exciting and indeed commendable!

Spotlight: M-PESA / Mobile Money

At the recent ForumOxford conference, Mi-Pay‘s Simon Cahill reported a most remarkable case of the use of mobile. He told us about the Kenyan operator Safaricom (in which Vodafone holds a stake) and its M-PESA service (which now also operates in Tanzania, South Africa and Afghanistan, too; you can apparently also send money to Kenya from the UK; see here a TV ad).

M-PESA is not new; it launched to the market already in 2007 and a pilot commenced as early as 2005 (here’s a link to a background document).

The success is staggering: according to Mr Cahill, no less than 20% of Kenya’s GDP is running through mobile money. Yes, I did write that: 20%!!! Safaricom asserts it moves nearly €150m worth of transactions per day (which would make it larger than Western Union).

It works basically like top-ups for prepaid phones: one party sends money to another one using the recipient’s phone number (and the sender’s PIN). The recipient will be notified by SMS and can then either use it as phone credit or receive a pay-out through an agent. Interestingly, Safaricom partnered with thousands of merchants, groceries, etc because the banking system in Kenya’s rural parts is so thinly developed that people could not have used it appropriately. Apparently, a lot of people do not actually take the cash out but keep the balance in the phone (for top-ups or just for keeps). This means that, as an aside, Safaricom is allegedly saving $12m for not having to print and distribute top-up cards for its prepaid customers.

M-PESA has more than 10m users in Kenya alone, and with the contribution to the country’s GDP as outlined above, it clearly is one of THE greatest mobile services in the world! And a final nugget by Mr Cahill: according to (I am quoting from memory, which might be a little shaky) the World Bank, mobile banking contributes 2-3% growth p.a. to the economy of a developing or emerging country.

Awesome!

Carnival of the Mobilists # 225

This weeks Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted over at mobiEnthusiast (with a strikingly familiar WordPress theme), and it comes with a lot of goodies, amongst which a stat-packed post on mobile money (and one on why banks need to fully understand it), Ajit Jaokar’s take on net neutrality, the iPad as a spoke in the mobile wheel, a look iAd vs Google/AdMob as well as two podcasts from carnivalist extraordinaire Peggy Salz: A Thomson Reuters SVP suggesting mobile is about companion products and Handmark’s Paul Reddick on why a good brand and a great app may not be quite enough.

Last but not least, my post on the state of mobile games on Android has been included.

So go over there and have a good read. It’s here.

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