Image credit: Getty Images, RK Studio/Kevin Lanthier/Flickr
Using the mobile financial service provider Obopay, Nokia intends to revolutionize the world of banking through its new service Nokia Money. It’s reportedly very easy to use, and will facilitate all kinds of financial transactions, such as bill paying. They are also building a large network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can come in person to deposit money or withdraw cash from their accounts. Users will pay 25 cents to send any amount of money up to $1000, and receiving a payment is free. Right now, Obopay only works in the US and India, but more information will be released at Nokia World in September.
Mary McDowell, EVP and Chief Development Officer at Nokia says:
“We believe mobile financial services offer a market opportunity with long term growth potential. In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage, suggesting that many mobile phone users have very limited or no access to basic financial services. With more than 4 billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts, global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services such as Nokia Money”
[via Intomobile]
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There’s other major cellphone companies working in similar projects in Africa, South America and other developing countries.
“They are also building a large network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can come in person to deposit money or withdraw cash from their accounts.”
In the presentations I’ve seen (not from Nokia), the person responsible of selling you airtime (in India, let’s say, you have to go to a convenience store to have airtime added to your current balance and it’s the clerck that does the transaction on your phone) would be the same person responsible of putting money in your cell. In other words, it would work pretty much like adding up minutes but instead ud be filling your bank account.
That would facilitate money transfer and was seen by the presenter as a way to emancipate lowest income families from the burden of transaction fees + ppl who have no bank accounts, as stated in Me McDowell statement.
my 2 cents.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:11 pm