Here’s a quick look at the mobile money stories from around the world this morning. We’ve got a new mobile payment service in Kosovo; good news for African service Zain and mobile banking stats from comScore. Also: mobile payment service M-CodeOne has branched into anti-crime.
M-CodeOne:
M-CodeOne is a mobile banking platform that allows any financial institution to offer m-banking to its customers. It has always focused heavily on end user authentication, trying to guarantee as much security as possible. Now it has also launched a “silent alarm” feature. If you’re using your M-CodeOne service, you can trigger the silent alarm. This alerts your financial institute that you’re in trouble, and also delivers your location through GPS. It’s then up to the institute to get the police to you.
The example that M-CodeOne offers for the use of this service is to defend against “lightning kidnapping” – where the victim is held for a short amount of time, and forced to provide cash to the kidnappers.
From the release:
“M-CodeOne users have an additional security feature, which is not necessary when making normal transactions of drawing or electronic payments, however, it can be used during a transaction to trigger a silent alarm inside M-CodeOne platform in connection with the financial system”, said Wilson DaSilva, M-CodeOne Latin America President. “The bank and the client have the option, for example, to alert the police with the exact location of the crime in progress, or to immediately notify other authorities.”
comScore:
Analytics company comScore has released its first study into mobile finance. The two key findings released were: 1) mobile banking users prefer browser services to apps 2) despite being able to use mobile banking on-the-go, most users prefer to use it at home.
As you can see browsers are more popular than apps, but not by much. It is interesting how much more SMS is used on non-smartphones. Just goes to show how much more difficult both apps and browsers are to use on feature phones.
The majority of users who mobile bank at home also had a PC capable of accessing the same services. There must be huge appeal to being able to slump in front of your TV while doing your banking.
From the release:
“The increasing adoption of smartphones and access to 3G networks, along with the rapid development of mobile apps, have created a fertile environment for the acceleration of mobile banking,” said Marc Trudeau, comScore senior director. “A seamless mobile banking user experience is necessary for this behavior to take hold, and the convergence of the aforementioned technologies is now making mobile phones a viable access point for personal banking transactions. Financial institutions hoping to capitalize on this quickly emerging consumer banking trend need to be ahead of the curve and understand how consumers are using the mobile channel today and how they would like to use it in the future.”
Zain:
One week ago, African mobile operator Zain launched mobile payment service ZAP. The service allows Zain customers to use their credit cards, send money to friends, pay their bills and top up their phones. It also allows cash transfers at shop check-outs. Today Zain announced that SHELL, Total and MOGAS are now partners for ZAP.
“They will be able to buy fuel, purchase goods in the fuel stations’ shops and even get their vehicles serviced using ZAP. There is no need for people to carry large sums of money. All they need is their mobile phones,” Angela Kenyonza Zain’s M-Commerce manager explained.
Via All Africa
Kosovo:
Telecoms company Fast Europe Ventures has teamed with internet portal Telegrafi.com. The two are launching a mobile payment service for Kosovo. The service lets the phone act like a credit card. Users can put credit on their phone, and use it to pay for goods at physical locations. The service has been planned since Januray, and Fast Europe has made operator deals to also launch it in Albania and Macedonia as well.
Via The Paypers
