Mobile Finance

Mobile taxation continues to be a major issue impacting mobile penetration across East Africa. Despite widespread investment from the mobile operator community, fierce price competition and market liberalisation making mobile more accessible, subscriber take-up in the region continues to lag behind the rest of the world...

Zap is the new service from Zain which the operator claims will become a comprehensive and accessible African mobile banking service. Zap is aimed at 100 million people in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda...

Bharti Telesoft, which provides integrated Value-Added Services to mobile operators in emerging markets, has been invited to be a founding member of the Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) Working Group by the GSMA, as a result of its work in the development and deployment of mobile banking solutions in emerging markets worldwide...

CGAP, the global microfinance centre has been releasing new research and data to encourage telecom operators, financial institutions and governments to see the business potential in expanding access to financial services for poor people in developing markets. The current economic climate makes the need for widespread availability of safe alternatives to cash even more pressing...

Did you know that 40% of the world's population does not have a bank account, and yet more than 60% have access to a mobile phone? Redknee and its operator customers would like to brief delegates to Mobile World Congress 2009 on how mobile money services are bridging the crucial gap, and how these services will change the industry and the way people bank in 2009...

Vodafone, Safaricom, and Western Union will be partnering to pilot a cross-border Mobile Money Transfer service between the UK and Kenya. This service will enable customers to send cross-border remittances from select locations directly to Safaricom mobile subscribers and within minutes...

Latin Americans living in the USA are keen to adopt money transfer using the less traditional method of a mobile phone, according to a survey commissioned by Upaid, the leading mobile payments provider. Upaid commissioned Research Now to survey US citizens transferring money to countries across Latin America...

The Western Union Company has created an alliance with Orascom Telecom Holding, one of the largest mobile operators in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Orascom and Western Union plan to work together to introduce mobile remittance services in select markets. The services aim to make low-principal, high-frequency remittances more convenient to the millions of consumers who send money every day...

In this viewpoint feature Stephen Gibb, Chief Information Officer at mobile payments specialist Upaid, looks at how businesses and consumers can benefit from cross-border payments in emerging markets such as Brazil...

In many developing economies, more citizens own mobile phones than own traditional bank accounts. A new research report by Mercator Advisory Group stresses the lessons to be learnt from mobile money experiences in South Africa, the Philippines, and Kenya...

S1 Enterprise Corporation, a provider of software for financial and payment services and Clickatell have announced a partnership to provide an on-demand text-based banking service which will be available to companies in more than 200 countries...

Leading mobile payments provider Mi-Pay has signed a contract with an East African operator to deliver a mobile money ecosystem to its subscribers in rural communities. Mi-Pay's technology will enable subscribers to benefit from international remittance services, as well as support a network of agents to support domestic payments via mobile...

Mobile payments could explode into a US$22 billion market within the next three years...

Mobile payments specialist Upaid has launched its Mobile Payment Service (MPS) marketing campaign across Serbia. Including all three mobile operators and ten banks in Serbia, this national launch expands the service started in October 2006...

A pilot programme aims to tap mobile technology to help the world's 200 million international migrant workers,  many of whom don't have bank accounts, send remittances to their dependents easily and securely. Spearheaded by 19 mobile operators in over 100 countries and representing over 600 million customers, the programme has ambitious aims...

The proliferation of mobile communications in developing countries has the potential to bring a wide range of financial services to an entirely new customer base, according to a new report commissioned by the Information for Development Program (infoDev) in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the GSM Association...