Cloud 9

Mobile Payments project by Payments Council UK has progressed towards making payments using just a mobile phone number possible for everyone. The Payment Council is working on the database that links mobile numbers to account details. By doing this, an individual can receive and make payments on the go via Mobile phones regardless of who you Bank with. The database will be available to UK banks and building societies before the end of 2012. Customers will register for the service through their own bank, with no need to share their details with a third party. The final service will be safe, secure and simple to use – offering an easy way to pay a friend back for dinner, or pay a window cleaner or other tradesman. The work to develop account-to-account mobile payments is going ahead in the context of a wider review of the landscape in mobile payment initiatives, including developments in contactless payments (also known as Near Field Communication, or NFC) and banking ‘app

Interbank Mobile Payment Service or IMPS allows interbank electronic fund transfers through Mobile devices. In simple terms, IMPS enable customers to access their Bank account through Mobile Device along with transfer of high interbank fund transfers in a secured environment.  It belongs to National Payments Corporation of India, an organisation for all retail payment systems in India.This facility is provided by NPCI through its existing NFS switch.  Considering, the current fund transfer channel mechanisms such as NEFT, One of the drawbacks is the transactions are processed and settled in batches, hence are not real time. Also, the transactions can be done only during the working hours of the RTGS system. Objective of IMPS: 1. To enable bank customers to use mobile instruments as a channel for accessing their banks accounts and  remit funds 2.  Making payment simpler just with the mobile number of the beneficiary 3.  To sub-serve the goal of Reserve Bank

Mobile image technology has the potential to transform internal business processes, particularly those that support sales and service. Just as significant as the positive impact that mobile imaging technology has on the customer experience, is what it can do for streamlining data capture. The possibilities for transforming insurers’ business processes are vast. It is a catalyst for innovation. Insurers can rethink their processes with the same creativity that they apply to customer interactions. Insurers using mobile imaging think of a mobile camera as a replacement for a PC, telephone, scanner, and printer all in one – as a picture that can be used to communicate in a variety of mediums within a single transaction. Mobile imaging technology successfully bridges the gap between the physical and digital world. As insurers consider the new power in starting with the data capture portion of business processes, rather than with the transaction, it is advisable to start with the

Oogwave is a free web based collaboration platform service that lets you work better together with your team, by letting you bring all your work information, files, discussions and plans to a single place and allows you to share and work together easily with your team, department or company colleagues. Oogwave Inc is founded by Sunny Pushp, CEO and Andy Cobb, President Strategy in Jan 2011. It is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. In Sept 2011, they launched Oogwave, a simple online collaboration tool, esthetically made with an appealing user interface. There is no downloads required, so it can be used from any Internet-connected device computer, smart phones and iPad. “In case you haven't noticed, work is a bit different these days. It's not just jobs changing--the whole culture is different. These days, things are moving at the speed of a tweet, and people want access to company systems and data at all times. Ba

Mobile Payments Ecosystem Stakeholders The four potential mobile payments business model as follows: Operator-Centric Model: The mobile operator acts independently to deploy mobile payment applications to NFC-enabled mobile devices. The applications may support a prepaid stored value model or the charges may be integrated into the customer’s wireless bill.   Bank-Centric Model: A bank deploys mobile payment applications or devices to customers and ensures merchants have the required point-of-sale (POS) acceptance capability. Payments are processed over the existing financial networks with credits and debits to the appropriate accounts.   Peer-to-Peer Model: An independent peer-to-peer service provider provides secure mobile payments between customers or between customers and merchants.   Collaboration Model: This model involves collaboration among banks, mobile operators and other stakeholders in th

Overview : Fundamo is a private company based out of South Africa and builds mobile financial service products primarily used by MNOs. Its deployments have focused largely on emerging markets where the MNOs have a strong distribution network and banking services are mostly serving an elite few. Its mobile wallet and financial services infrastructure provides a full-range mobile money product (see below for features). Founded in 2000 by Hannes van Rensburg, Fundamo has grown to be a respected leader in the mobile money space. Van Rensburg has prior experience working in the financial services industry which definitely bolsters Fundamo’s credibility in delivering robust financial solutions. Key Features: Fundamo’s Mobile Wallet platform enables the full range of mobile money basics, including: P2P transfers (local and international) Airtime purchases Bill payments Balance inquiries Card and PIN management Notable Clients/Partnerships: Fundamo boasts working in more th

mHITs (Mobile Handset Initiated TransactionS) is an Australia micropayment service which allows users to send and receive money via SMS. The company offers a person-to-person payment system that uses a mobile phone as the transaction device rather than an automatic teller or EFTPOS terminal. Users send and receive money via SMS text message and can make payments instantly between any Australian mobile phone. Users can also make purchases from on-line merchants, pay parking fees and taxi fares. mHITs also offers a Point Of Sale (POS) terminal which allows the service to be used at retail points of sale, such as ordering a coffee or purchasing a magazine. As the SMS authorising payment can also include a message, users have discovered that the service can be utilised to pre-order products, such that they are ready for pickup upon arrival at the store. mHITs utilises a prepaid model (identical in principle to pre-paid phone credit) to ensure that the customer has funds ready to

With increasing number of smartphones that are fitted with NFC techology, m ore and more businesses are making use of NFC for their marketing, making their customers familiar to the technology. Another thing that is driving that awareness is the efforts of such big companies such as Google, Sprint, AT&T, Visa, MasterCard, Samsung, LG and other similarly large companies in the fields of NFC technology and mobile payments in general. What’s more, all of these companies are working doubly hard to make their own payment system easy to use and very convenient. These efforts would encourage people to use or at least try out their payment systems. In fact, a recent Juniper Research report reveals that by 2017, 1 in every 4 American consumers are going to use NFC to pay for their purchases. That is 25%, a far cry from the current 2%! Another study has shown that NFC mobile payments are on the rise. According to IDC Financial Insight’s Consumer Payments Survey, 1 in every 3 of thei

NFC retail payments market will exceed $180 billion globally by 2017. The leading regions of North America, Western Europe and Far East & China will contribute 90% of this market value as smartphones with NFC payment technology become standard. Technology & Ecosystem Developments The report found that 2011 was a watershed year for NFC payments. Major technology infrastructure   standards were finalised, many mobile network operators committed to the market and NFC payment pilots from both mobile operators and financial institutions transitioned to commercial service. Above all, NFC-enabled smartphone models were announced by almost all handset manufacturers and Google ignited the market by launching its wallet in the US. New Focus on Retailers The report warned, however, that the market acceleration of 2011 revealed some parts of the ecosystem unprepared for the future. In particular, retailers are less convinced of the benefits of NFC payments over existing card t

The typical insurance agent tends to rely on 20th century tools such as direct mail, cold calls and email marketing. While some agents have made a lukewarm attempt at using social media outlets such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, the truth is that these tools will generate very little business. Let’s take a look at some marketing statistics: Direct mail generates less than a 3 percent response rate. Even when the agent follows up with a call, the direct mail piece is remembered by less than 5 percent of respondents. Email marketing results in an open rate of less than 10 percent. Even where the email marketing consists of a regularly scheduled e-newsletter into which people have opted, the open rate is consistently less than 27 percent. Television and radio advertisements are expensive and do little to strengthen your brand identity in the minds of your customers. Cold calling will certainly result in sales success, but for every 10 people that actually hear your message,

Gartner identifies top 10 consumer mobile applications in 2012 No. 1: Money Transfer This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year. However, challenges do exist in both regulatory and operational risks. Because of the fast growth of mobile money transfer, regulators in many markets are piling in to investigate the impact on consumer costs, security, fraud and money laundering. On the operational side, market conditions vary, as do the local resources of service providers, so providers need different market strategies when entering a new territory. No. 2: Location-Based Services Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years.

Now that the largest health plans have mobile sites and common capabilities for members to look up a physician's address, display a member card or a billing address, they are moving on to building apps that are more directly involved with patients' health. They want to provide the mobile applications that members turn to for help with staying healthy, diagnosing illnesses and communicating with their doctors. All of the large health plans say they aren't interested in replacing physicians with an app but rather helping members figure out when a doctor's care is necessary, then connecting the patient and doctor using mobile technology. Joseph Smith, MD, PhD, is chief medical officer for West Wireless Health, a San Diego-based medical research organization funded solely by the Gary and Mary West Foundation. "The revolution in mobile health is not about replacing physicians, but rather in extending their reach and better targeting their time and t

Mobile marketing is the act of connecting with your target audience over a mobile platform, namely, through their mobile phones. It is about staying relevant to your audience whenever and wherever they go. With smartphones controlling 49% of the mobile market, marketers are rushing to incorporate mobile into their overall marketing strategy. To give you a snapshot of the mobile market, we made a list of the top 13 mobile marketing stats every business should know when hunting down their share of the mobile audience. The global smartphone market experienced a 54% year-over-year growth rate in 2011 64% of 25-35 year olds own a smartphone 1 in 4 mobile subscribers over the age of 55 now own a smartphone 44% of mobile phone owners use their devices more than 10 times each day 53% of smartphone owners use search engines at least once a day 90% look up local information; 87% of these users subsequently call the business, visit the website o

Google launches Gmail SMS service in three African countries While much of the developed world has grown used to high-speed internet access, the majority of the African continent remains without reliable and affordable internet, placing modern communication staples like email firmly out of reach to most. However, Google has recently announced Gmail SMS, a new service available in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, which brings Gmail to all cellphones capable of sending SMS text messages - no data connection required. Google states that the only technical capability which cellphones must meet in order to use the service is the ability to send and receive SMS messages, allowing owners of even the most basic or venerable handsets to use email without the need for 3G, EDGE or any other form of data connection. This places the potential of email communication into millions more hands than before. The Gmail SMS service works as follows: following an initial setup process which presumably does

C. Third Architecture Option Third option represents the architecture with an even bigger role of Mobile Device manufacturers and designers of Operating Systems (OS). Apple will most probably present its NFC mobile payment architecture with the new iPhone in July 2011. The reason so much attention is given to Apple in the Option 3 architecture is that this exact architecture is what everyone expects Apple to introduce. Other possible players in this architecture are Nokia, Google with Android OS and Samsung and HTC as biggest supporting device manufacturers and RIM (Research in Motion) with Blackberry devices. Google and Apple have been most persistent to entire the mobile payment market lately, and the question is whether they are ready to go into the game with companies like PayPal, which have been in the payment field for more then ten years. Apple is known to be strong on customer service, which is very important in payments, while Google is stronger in technology-driven ri

B. Second Architecture Option In the Second option Credit Card companies  have a less important role. There is another player, Trusted Third Party service, which makes the architecture more secure and global, but also more complex. This  might lead to the increase of transaction fees. Focus in this particular architecture is exactly on the Independent Trusted Third Party that has the role of the neutral trusted service. There are two possible solutions regarding the party that performs this role: - Mobile Network Operator - Independent Trusted Service Manager (TSM) In this architecture Mobile Device manufacturer also embeds the NFC chip and the antenna into the device, while the Secure Element (SE) is stored into SIM/UICC card provided by MNO. NFC Payment Application (MIDlet) is to be provided by third party trusted service, including download and life cycle. There are companies trying to get into the market as the independent Trusted Third party,