Last updated: 20 March 2014
Imagine the following: being able to pay for your taxi with your phone, buying a TV online without needing to set up an account with Amazon or other merchants, using your phone, transferring money to your savings account or topping up your checking account, with your phone, sending money to a contact who can retrieve it from an ATM, with a phone…
Well, as part of the Gemalto Mobile Financial Services Experience, on show at #CARTES a few weeks ago, it could all become reality. The technology is there to provide people with a range of financial services using their mobile, without necessarily requiring a smartphone or a bank account. Different options are available and already in place.
In developing countries for instance, Colombia, Mexico and Zimbabwe, many are ‘unbanked’, which means they do not have a bank account. However, most have a mobile phone and the mobile operators are enabling their customers to gain access to and share money securely via the mobile, whatever type of phone they have. In developing countries, mobile banking is helping to close the poverty gap, offering mobile person-to-person transactions that don’t necessitate a smartphone or a bank account. However, the issue here is often one of trust between the different industry players, and also one of trust bestowed by the consumer upon a service provider. Here’s a video of this trust is helping people in Thailand, Uganda and Colombia.
In May earlier this year, for example, a survey showed that mobile and telecommunication brands receive significantly lower levels of trust when it comes to controlling financial transactions. Do we think this has changed? Are mobile operators working more closely with the retail merchants, and with the banks, and with the transport operators to enable the mobile experience to be a seamless one? Well, research from Forrester Research on behalf of Fiserv shows that mobile person-to-person payments will account for the majority of mobile investment in 2012 by financial institutions, meaning banks could lead the way in future.
That said, emerging markets such as Zimbabwe are being enabled with end-to-end mobile money solutions, courtesy of its leading network operator NetOne. Offering secure banking services on 100% of handsets, all subscribers (including the unbanked) can make secure and easy peer-to-peer money transfers, pay every-day bills and top up their prepaid phone cards. We are hopeful that consumer demand will eventually lead to the widespread adoption of new – merged with existing – technologies by all stakeholders as, ultimately, they should put the consumer first – regardless of whether he or she owns a smartphone, has access to a bank account or an ATM machine. And then, we can look forward to a future that might look like this…
