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Since the Singapore summit of June 2011, some exciting developments regarding further strategic partnerships took place, bringing previous competitors closer to each other working towards some global, interoperable mobile money network.
The likes of an Isis/Visa/MasterCard alliance now interconnects other alliances such as the Google/MasterCard venture and the Visa/Fundamo deals. This should surely expedite the race towards a global interoperable strive, as no major roll-player could be ignored anymore.
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Towards a global, interoperable mobile money network
- Bruce Burke
It’s 3:02 AM and I’m up writing this blog post. It’s been almost two weeks, and I’m still not back on a normal schedule or mind frame following my trip to Singapore for the GSMA Mobile Money Summit. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be the same again …
The GSMA represents the interests of mobile network operators worldwide. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators. If you want a world view of mobile communications, attend a GSMA event. The GSMA Mobile Money Summit is a series of events focused specifically on mobile money services. Currently in its fourth year, the Summit is hitting its stride, as mobile money deployments are headline news worldwide. This year’s event had a special session of the Working Group for the Mobile Money for the Unbanked, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And since yours truly received an invitation, I just had to fly to Singapore to attend.
The morning of the first day, I ascended the escalator to the fourth floor of the convention center and was immediately immersed in the world of mobile money. The director for the working group, Seema Desai, welcomed everyone and guided us through an amazing set of presentations concerning the work being done to provide financial inclusion to people around the world utilizing the power of mobile money. We heard from Jennifer Brassa of Top Image, whose company collects data from independent mobile money agents. Salah Goss spoke about how mobile money services are helping rebuild Haiti. David Porteus talked about deployments in the Philippines. Others spoke about mobile money aiding undeveloped and emerging markets. During breaks I spoke with representatives from Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Kenya, and Dubai.
That evening at the cocktail reception I met representatives from Monitise, Nokia, CGAP, and the Grameen Foundation. I also finally got a chance to meet the inimitable Scott Bales. Scott is the vice president of business solutions for Fundamo, a global mobile payment platform recently acquired by Visa. I’ve been interacting with Scott through social media networks for almost three years and he introduced me to his Fundamo associates Aaron Oliver, Aletha Ling and their CEO Hannes Van Rensburg. Fundamo has been very involved in financial inclusion for quite some time.
Being a member of the press I was invited to take part in a special reporter’s roundtable luncheon hosted by GSMA’s head of mobile money Neil Daly. The discussion included Claire Alexander of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Andy Chong of Axiata, Ben Soppit with AXIS, Dickson Chu representing Citibank, Adam Kerr with Ericsson, Thierry Barba of Orange, and Visa’s Global Head of Mobile Products Bill Gajda.
The discussion centered on efforts by companies such as Visa in promoting mobile money to further financial inclusion around the world. Mr. Gajda said that in order to make mobile money more interoperable worldwide, a new set of “best practices” needs to be put in place. For its part, Visa is encouraging a global mobile money framework that enhances all types of electronic and mobile transactions while playing the role of securing the transactions.
Mr. Gajda was also a keynote speaker at the event. During his presentation he spoke about the importance of Visa’s acquisition of Fundamo and investment in Monitise, a mobile banking and payments company, to its mobile money efforts. He addressed the issue of opening closed-loop mobile money ecosystems around the world and provided an example of how a card holder in the U.S. could someday seamlessly transfer money to a mobile money account in Africa. Mr. Gajda said Visa intends to serve both the developed and emerging markets, providing services suited to each market and culture using a contiguous, secure backbone. He said that mobile technologies can reach areas where traditional payment infrastructures are not, and probably never will be, in place.
It was very interesting to see how payment companies are working towards financial inclusion for consumers around the world. Payment brands like Visa are in a unique position to deliver the speed-to-market and scalable solutions required to meet new demands created by the convergence of internet, mobile, and electronic payments technologies. Along with financial institutions, merchants, mobile network operators, governments and non-profit foundations, these companies are finding ways to bring innovative financial technologies to more consumers and merchants around the world in Generation-M!
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Bruce Burke
The organizer of the Social Mobile Payments conference series is a pioneer in e-POS. Burke has extensive knowledge in electronic transactions, and mobile commerce. His experience includes product development, project management and brand marketing including his current work in mobile money ecosystems and its integration into existing economies.
