Indians in UAE receive mobile remittance from Etisalat
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Indian expats in UAE can send money to their family sitting at home or in the office from later next month. A partnership between Etisalat and Citibank will help Etisalat subscribers to send their money via mobile phone. The cost of the service is still not disclosed.
According to Essa al-Haddad, group chief marketing officer of UAE’s largest telecoms firm, Etisalat, the service will be provided to the Indian subcontinent customers to make their money sending task easy. Other countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Egypt will receive the service in the coming months.
Remittance trials has been conducted by Etisalat in India and in the Philippines via mobile phones last year with several banking partners before finalizing deal with Citibank. However, the new service threatens the business of the currency exchange houses that help expats remit $10 billion to their home countries.
M-pesa agents’ recruitment method changed by Safaricom
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Removing the need to deal directly with sub- agents, Aggregator Model, a new system has been launched by Safaricom, a leading mobile phone provider, thus changing tack on its method of recruiting mobile money transfer, M-pesa agents.
As per the new model, the sub agents will be appointed by the agents on its behalf. The model will be introduced especially in the areas like Nairobi which are considered to be highly saturated by the agents. The super agents will give a float to the agents and the details are later passed on to the sub agents who will then work on agreed commissions by the agents.
Essar, a rival telecom operator, on the other hand, is set to launch money transfer service yuCash, thus eliminating the need for sub-agents altogether. Besides, it will ensure that agents get maximum commission, which it says is yet to be finalized but will be competitive.
Safaricom says that they have taken the step to protect its partnership with the existing agents. According to Safaricom chief executive Michael Joseph, existing agents have the capacity to serve Nairobi and other areas adequately. Besides, the migration of the existing sub-agents under the agency model to Aggregator has already begun.
India to receive mobile number portability by March 31, 2010
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Indian consumers can avail the facility of the much awaited service of mobile number portability by March 31, 2010 as per the announcement by the Indian government. However, the date of the launch has already been delayed by three months.
Through this service, the consumers can retain their number even after switching the operator. The service was supposed to be implemented in Category A and in the metros from December 31, 2009 and in other areas by March 20, 2010.
