Nokia Money due to launch soon

Nokia is attempting to create a multi-bank, multi-operator and multi-device collaboration on mobile banking.
Nokia’s mobile banking and payment service is expected to be commercially available in its first market in Q1 2010, though no location details have been revealed yet.
According to Teppo Paavola, vice president, GM mobile financial services, Nokia cannot reveal any details until a banking partner is confirmed. It is learnt that the service requires a banking license before it can be launched.
Nokia said its target is to have 300 million active users of its services by the end of 2011; the number is expected to be 80 million by the end of 2009.
Paavola said the service will enable un-banked people in emerging markets to transfer money, top up prepaid mobile services, pay bills, carry out online transactions, and pay merchants.
Global mobile payments market is expected to be worth €18 billion by 2014 – €12 billion from emerging markets and €6 billion from developed markets.
Approaches to mobile banking so far have lacked scale and have not worked across operators and across banks.
Nokia therefore plans to drive the collaboration on an open financial ecosystem, with Nokia Money at its core. Paavola added that it has taken a long time to get all the players together, from banks through to mobile operators.
The Nokia Money application will not only be pre-loaded but could be sideloaded, or downloaded later.
Nokia will also be able to provide the physical distribution channel that is critical for the service to work. For example, Nokia handset sellers can be turned into Nokia Money agents, providing the devices, the application, and the ability to handle cash.

Nokia is attempting to create a multi-bank, multi-operator and multi-device collaboration on mobile banking, a service dubbed Nokia Money.

Nokia’s mobile banking and payment service is expected to be commercially available in its first market in Q1 2010, though no location details have been revealed yet.

According to Teppo Paavola, vice president, GM mobile financial services, Nokia cannot reveal any details until a banking partner is confirmed. It is learnt that the service requires a banking license before it can be launched.

Nokia said its target is to have 300 million active users of its services by the end of 2011.

Paavola said the service will enable un-banked people in emerging markets to transfer money, top up prepaid mobile services, pay bills, carry out online transactions, and pay merchants.

Global mobile payments market is expected to be worth €18 billion by 2014 – €12 billion from emerging markets and €6 billion from developed markets.

Approaches to mobile banking so far have lacked scale and have not worked across operators and across banks.  Nokia therefore plans to drive the collaboration on an open financial ecosystem, with Nokia Money at its core.

The Nokia Money application will not only be pre-loaded but could be sideloaded, or downloaded later.

Nokia will also be able to provide the physical distribution channel that is critical for the service to work. For example, Nokia handset sellers can be turned into Nokia Money agents, providing the devices, the application, and the ability to handle cash.

Leading mobile telecommunications provider Zain today announces the revolutionary enhancement of Zap, its rapidly expanding mobile banking service currently available  to over 100 million people in East Africa and run in partnership with CitiBank and Standard Chartered Bank. From today Zap customers can swiftly and securely receive money from any bank account around the world and easily send money to any bank in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. This is the first time in the world any mobile bank account has been configured so that its users can receive funds from anywhere in the world directly to their mobile handset as well as send funds directly to their Bank accounts.
In addition Zap allows customers to use their mobile phone 24 hours a day to:
  • Manage their bank accounts
  • Pay for goods and services and settle their utility bills
  • Receive Zap money – and send Zap money to their friends and family
  • Top up their airtime account – or top up someone else’s
  • Check their balance and keep on top of their payments

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telefonica, one of theworld’s leaders in the telecommunications sector, and MoreMagic Solutions, a leading mobile transactions provider, announced today that U.S. friends and family of Telefonica customers are now able to recharge Telefonica mobile phones throughout Latin America, using MoreMagic Solutions International Roaming Recharge Global Hub. Telefonica operates in twelve Latin American countries under the Movistar brand. From hundreds of thousands of retail locations, or the web – www.etopuponline.com, a customer can send a gift of prepaid airtime to a Movistar mobile phone.

MoreMagic Solutions International Roaming Recharge Global Hub leverages an extensive network of hundreds of thousands of retail locations in the United States, where the service is available for customers who have connections with Movistar customers in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru.

“Movistar customers are asking friends and family throughout the world to help them stay connected in a cost-effective and convenient way, and we are pleased to work with MoreMagic Solutions to meet their needs,” said Jaime Grau, Transactional Services Director at Telefonica Latinoamerica. “In communities throughout the United States, customers can purchase a gift of airtime at their neighborhood convenience store, and the Movistar mobile phone back home is immediately credited.”

(more…)

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Peru to launch M Banking in mid-2010

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Peru will reportedly launch mobile banking systems from mid-2010, reports Felipe Tam, Chief of Peru’s Superintendency of Banking, Insurance and Private Pension Funds (SBS).
The project dubbed as M Banking, is being developed with the financial support of Inter American Bank for Development (BID). “The BID has hired a consultant and we are waiting for the final inform,” said Tam.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Digitel, the Venezuelan mobile operator has reportedly introduced new applications via its i-móvil online contents portal. Named as Mercantil Movil Internet, is one the two new applications and offer access to mobile banking services, developed in partnership with financial services provider Mercantil Banco Universal. Mrcantil debit cardholders can use the m-banking application to carry out balance enquiries, mobile payments for utilities, pay their credit card balances and also can perform transfers between their own accounts or to third-party bank accounts.
The second application is dubbed as Panísimas and provides a social networking portal developed expressly for mobile devices, enabling users to share pictures, audio and video files with friends connected to the same network.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the Chinese bank, has reportedly announced its Mobile Banking (WAP) 3G service in collaboration with China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.
This service will enable users to use basic banking services such as account inquiry and remittance by transfer, as well as a series of investment and financing functions in the domestic industry such as payment, repayment by credit card, instalment, funding and gold trade.
Users can register for ICBC’s mobile financial services by registering with the bank and subsequently accessing its Mobile Banking (WAP) 3G section.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: In its goal to become a major presence in the Canadian telecom market, Globalive Wireless has selected solutions from SmartTrust to build an extremely sophisticated yet user-friendly wireless network. SmartTrust, a developer of Mobile Device Management (MDM) and SIM management software for mobile operators, will supply Globalive with a common and SIM independent platform for managing next-generation handsets, a customized roaming product, and a turnkey solution for launching value-added services.

With SmartAct™ Over-the-Air (OTA) SIM management software, Globalive will ensure that all devices operating on its network will be recognized, correctly configured and optimized to the full extent of each device’s specific potential and capability.
SmartAct, now available on the SmartTrust DP8 OTA platform, offers a holistic SIM management solution capable of handling multiple card types independent of card vendor. (more…)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Checking your account balance or paying a bill used to involve a trip to the bank, and in recent years, logging on to your home PC. Today, Citibank is making banking easier than ever for its U.S. customers by expanding its mobile offering to smartphones, including most BlackBerry(R) smartphones, Palm(R) devices and iPhone(TM)( )mobile devices. Now, more Citibank customers can access and manage their bank accounts — anytime and anywhere — via their smartphone’s mobile browser.

“We understand that our customers’ busy lives keep them on the go, which is why we want to make it as easy as possible for them to bank with us,” said Peter Knitzer, Group Executive Vice President, Citi. “With Citi Mobile now available for all smartphones, even more of our customers have access to fast, highly secure day-to-day banking whenever they need it.”

It’s become clear that consumers are no longer using their smartphones for business purposes only. According to a repot, Q1 2009 Mobile Insights survey, 62% of recent smartphone acquirers use their devices for personal reasons, such as taking photos or texting friends, while only 10% use them solely for business. Additionally, consumers are switching to smartphones at a rapid pace, with smartphones accounting for 22% of all devices acquired in the past six months, increasing total market penetration in the U.S. to 16%.

(more…)

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Etisalat, the UAE based mobile operator and financial services provider Emirates NBD will together launch mobile banking service. The new service will enable the subscribers to make account balance inquiries, transfer funds, pay their credit card bills and make payments to Etisalat by selecting the banking service from a menu on their mobile phone and making use of the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) service.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile banking and payment services provider MoBank is set to launch a mobile banking service in the UK on 6 July 2009, allowing subscribers to buy cinema tickets, books, flights, flowers and gifts. This is service ill be available first on iPhone. The company is planning to release versions for RIM, (Blackberry) and Android (G1) phones. MoBank application has been developed by Agencymobile, where as US account aggregation and online financial services provider Yodlee offers current banking services.