Nokia and India's Yes Bank partner on mobile finance pilot

Nokia the world's biggest handset manufacturer is teaming up with India's Yes Bank on a commercial mobile financial services pilot. The pilot scheme will let people transfer money to another person simply by using their mobile phone number. They'll also be able to pay utility bills and top up SIM cards while the ability to pay for goods and services is expected to be added in the future.

The system is based on technology from Obopay, the California m-payments start-up Nokia took a minority stake in last year. Soon after, the pair unveiled a mobile financial management and payments service targeted at unbanked people in developing countries.

At the time they predicted the service would be rolled out in "selected markets" this year and have now confirmed India as an early test site. Obopay and Yes Bank already had a partnership, enabling person-to-person and person-to-bank mobile payments.

India has the fastest growing cellular market in the world, says Obopay. There are 500 million mobile phones in the country now but this is expected to be reach than 900 million by the end of 2013. Meanwhile, 41% of the population does not even have a bank account.

Mobile Payments - M-PESA to be launched in South Africa

M-PESA was launched by Vodafone affiliate Safaricom in Kenya in 2007 and now claims over eight million users in that country. A recent study suggests that more than 10% of Kenya's GDP now pass through the mobile banking service.

M-PESA has since been introduced in Tanzania and Afghanistan and now Vodacom South Africa has teamed with an unnamed local financial institution to target the 26 million people in that country without bank accounts. Vodafone says only 60% of South African adults have bank accounts but mobile penetration is over 94%.

Cenk Serdar, director, mobile payments, Vodafone, says: "Mobile technology in Africa has already improved the lives of millions simply by allowing them to communicate far beyond their immediate surroundings. It is now set to transform the way we send and receive cash. The successful take-up of M-PESA in Kenya has clearly demonstrated the demand for easily accessible, secure payment services particularly in emerging markets."

Paying for parking with your mobile phone

Mobile payment systems are beginning to proliferate pretty rapidly now. There are some very impressive commercial systems out there already. This short video illustrates on such system to pay for parking. This particular system has been developed by Margento, a Dutch based technology company.

Remittances, Africa and the effects of the Financial Crisis

In a recently published Working Paper “The Global Financial Crisis and Workers’ Remittances to Africa: What’s the Damage?” Adolfo Barajas, Ralph Chami, Connel Fullenkamp, and Anjali Garg estimate the impact of the global economic crisis on African GDP via the remittance channel during 2009-2010. The data and it’s interpretation forecasts remittance declines into African countries of between 3 and 14 percentage points, with migrants to Europe hardest hit while migrants within Africa relatively unaffected by the crisis. The estimated impact on GDP for relatively remittance-dependent countries is 2 percent for 2009, but will likely be short-lived, as host country income is projected to rise in 2010.

The paper is available for download at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/wp1024.pdf

Mobile Payments - How "Square" works

A facinating look at how "Square" operates. Is this the future of mobile payments?

Credit Card payments on a Mobile Phone - Is this the future?

"Square" is a new add-on for a mobile phone that enables anyone (whether they own a business or not) to accept credit card payments with their iPhone or iPod touch.

Take a peek. Is this the future of payments?

European Union Parliament kills SWIFT deal

The European Parliament has voted to scrap a controversial agreement to allow US authorities access to EU banking data transmitted over the international SWIFT network.

In November 2009 European Union ministers agreed an temporary nine-month deal to continue letting US anti-terror investigators access details of bank transfers conducted over SWIFT.
The decision to overturn the agreement follows intense US lobbying ahead of Thursday's vote.

Last weekend in an interview with the German magazine Spiegel, Adam Szubin, the US treasury department official in charge of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, said that US tapping of SWIFT banking data had helped to identify and break-up a number of potentially deadly terrorist cells operating in Europe. He warned of serious diplomatic consequences, as well as security gaps, if Parliament were to veto the program.

But EU Parliamentarians were unconvinced by the appeals, expressing concerns that the deal failed to protect the privacy of EU citizens.

In the final vote, political leaders in Strasbourg voted 378-196 against the deal, with 31 abstentions.

The European Commission said it will need to explore with the US treasury department the extent to which there is scope to negotiate a long term EU-US TFTP agreement.

Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström states: "I remain convinced that the program enhances the security of our citizens: it would be the role of the Commission to make sure that all the relevant safeguards for EU citizens' privacy and data protection are duly included in any possible future agreement. In spite of this set back, I hope we will be able to agree a text in the near future that will give us greater security, more data protection and a useful cooperation tool with US authorities.

"Following today's vote in the European Parliament, we will have now to reflect together with our US partners on the possible negotiation of a new agreement".