Monitise and ViVOtech partner for NFC mobile payments
Mobile banking service provider, Monitise has collaborated with Near Field Communication (NFC) software developer ViVOtech, to deliver mobile phone payments services to banks across the USA.
In addition to contactless payments, service users will be able to transfer money from their registered accounts to other bank accounts, perhaps in response to an overdraft alert or to friends and family. The service will also deliver retail coupons and discounts directly to the user on their mobile phone.
This NFC service will be delivered through the combination of ViVOtech’s over-the-air (OTA) software and Monitise’s Mobile Money technology.
ViVOtech’s software allows data, such as credit, debit or prepaid card credentials, to be remotely loaded onto a secure chip. This can be in an NFC phone, a SIM card or a chip contained within a microSD card that can be inserted into the majority of existing smartphones, including BlackBerry, Android, Nokia and even in various iPhone cases.
According to Lisa Stanton, Monitise executive director of global alliances, Monitise welcomes its partnership with ViVOtech to deliver the next generation of fast, secure contactless payments to their many financial institution clients in the United States. They pride them on being at the forefront of mobile financial management and contactless payments. Combining the power of ViVOtech’s OTA software with their Mobile Money technology platform will ensure that they continue to deliver what the banks and their customers are looking for.
Monitise handles over 100 million mobile inquiries and transactions a year. The company has partnerships with over 240 financial institutions, with millions of people across the globe using its technology to manage their finances on their mobile phone. To date, ViVOtech software has been used successfully in more than 30 NFC phone pilot projects around the globe.
Nokia Money due to launch soon
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.
The mobile phone evolution continues
Don’t call them mobile phones – instead, they are powerful “multimedia computers” insinuating themselves into the global communications fabric.
Nokia’s executive vice-president Anssi Vanjoki (below) says the Finnish communications maker wants to non-exclusively provide the services and content for delivery to users, wherever they are.
“People buy these devices because they deliver experiences,” Mr Vanjoki says. “The design of the product attracts them but other than that it’s the function and the service they expect that excites them. So we are moving into the area of the experience but we will have an open platform as a computer.”
Music providers, for instance, offer individual services but limited choice. “We will offer an experience, such as a music store, but anyone else is most welcome to offer theirs on the same device and let the consumer decide, not us.”
Media companies will accept this because they are “in trouble,” he says. “Digital technology has caught them with their pants down . . . they really want to be digital and move away from the physical side of their distribution methods.”
Since it started experimenting with music downloads in Europe a year ago, Nokia paid $150 million in August for digital music service Loudeye. A Melbourne-based analyst with the British consulting firm, Ovum, Nathan Burley, says Nokia’s plans alienate telcos. “Carriers, such as Telstra, much prefer customers to use their services – they get revenue from the services and from the traffic on the network.”
Mr Vanjoki says handset use is becoming easier to alter radically, simply by loading software. For instance, broadcasting television to hand-held devices, what is called “DVB-H”, has started in Finland, Switzerland, Vietnam and Indonesia. Mr Vanjoki says that worldwide coverage will be achieved within two years.
And consumers, despite initial resistance, now crave the extra functionality, he says. He backs his assertion with a survey conducted in the early ’80s – when Nokia made carphones for Scandinavian network provider NMT – that found just 54 per cent in favour of mobiles.
“The rest . . . could not conceive of the evolution of the telephone into a mobile, constantly available instrument,” he says. But today everyone wants such a device because “it has become a tool for normal life in any society”, he says.
Emails, instant messaging, the web, imaging, video and other applications have meshed into one device that fits in a hip pocket and is unified with internet protocol, the net’s lingua franca.
Next up, global positioning systems, because “we want to have time and place-independent information, content, entertainment”.
Air fare, bed and breakfast in Helsinki for Garry Barker’s visit to the Nokia Research Centre were provided by Nokia.
NOKIA’S BIG DEALS
In June Nokia struck two major deals.
· The equal joint venture with German engineering giant, Siemens, merges the mobile and fixed-line equipment businesses of both companies that, with $27 billion in annual sales, creates one of the world’s biggest network companies.
· Its minority partnership with German smartcard company Giesecke & Devrient provides secure mobile payments technology linking banks, credit cards and carriers.
Source- http://www.smh.com.au
