Here’s a round-up of some of the mobile money stories that have been of interest to us this morning. We’ve got pieces from America, Asia, Africa and India.
iPhone check feature:
The USAA is a smaller bank in America, serving mostly military personell. But it has just launched a very interesting product – an iPhone application that allows you to deposit your check through your iPhone. You take a snap of the front and a snap of the back, hit send, and it deposits with USAA
Via http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/technology/10check.html?_r=1&hpw
Cambodian mobile banking:
Cambodian mobile service provider Smart Mobile and WING have launched a mobile money service. It allows Smart customers to send and recieve cash, and make payments, via top-up cards.
Via http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009080627606/Business/wing-works-with-smart-mobile.html
Large mobile banking services launch in India:
FINO is an Indian company that specialises in banking and financial services through Smartcards. Thanks to the growing popularity of mobile banking, FINO has launched a new mobile suite comprising a lot of micro-finance services. The FINO-MITRA package is aimed at people in poor or out-of-the-way areas, who might not have access to normal banking.
Via http://www.microfinancefocus.com/news/?p=697
Cleveland-based KeyBank and Fiserv launch mobile money service over mobile Web, application and SMS:
KeyBank is a large US bank based in Cleveland. It has gone mobile with the Mobile MoneySM service from banking technology company Fiserv. The service allows a full range of banking and financial services through either a mobile Web site, a downloadable application, or SMS.
CreditSMS wants to make SMS banking as solid and reliable as going to the bank:
There’s an interesting story here – while mobile micro-banking services like M-PESA are becoming more and popular in Africa, it turns out people don’t need them. By trading pre-paid airtime as a kind of currency, consumers have been able to create their own mobile banking. CreditSMS is an initiative that wants to codify all the different types of financial transactions that are possible with SMS, and create an in-depth and reliable mobile banking system:
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