Sybase buys paybox to tap mobile payments market

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 21 January 2009 23:00

IT Industry - Deals

In Australia Sybase365 is hoping to leverage the relationships its parent company has with local banks to sell the paybox technology. A number of global banks active in Australia are Sybase365 customers, Talbot said, but the primary relationship is overseas.

Paybox has a sales representative in Melbourne, but no customers in Australia at present. It made its local debut on the German Pavilion at the CeBit 2008 expo in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

Talbot said that Australia was not the most mature market for mobile payments, thanks to the conservatism of the local banks. "Apart from using mobiles for two factor authentication and for some marketing they have been slow to react,"

However this could soon change. At the GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February 2008 the GSM Association identifed mobile payments as one of the top priorities for mobile operators over he next 12-24 months.

Research undertaken by Edgar Dunn put the potential global market for mobile transactions at $US250b and for enablers, where Sybase365 and Paybox operate, at $US1.5b. Juniper Research forecasts the mobile-payment market will grown from $US2b in 2007 to $22US billion by 2011.

ABI Research recently released a report identifying mobile financial services as likely to serve more than a billion customers in 2013. Aite Group, a US-based analyst house, estimates the mobile banking opportunity to grow from $US13.9m in vendor revenues to $US26m in the US market in 2009 with vendor deployment expected to double in the same period.