Bank on Nokia: it's launching a money transfer service for cellphone users

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 27 August 2009 05:17

IT Industry - Strategy

Nokia has announced plans to launch a service that will enable cellphone users to access basic financial services such as sending money to another person just by using that person's mobile phone number, paying bills, paying for goods and services and recharging prepaid SIM cards.

The service, Nokia Money, will be operated in cooperation with Obopay, a developer of global mobile payment systems in which Nokia invested earlier this year, and will be based on Obopay's mobile payment platform with, Nokia claims, "unique and newly developed mobile elements." Nokia intends Nokia Money to be open and interoperable with other payment services.

Nokia says use of Nokia Money will be "as simple and convenient as making a voice call or sending an SMS," and will be accessible 24 hours a day from anywhere. It is building a wide network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can deposit money or withdraw cash from their accounts.

Nokia promises that the service will be available across different operator networks and on virtually any mobile phone. "It is designed to work in partnership with mobile network operators and financial institutions, involving distributors and merchants in a dynamic ecosystem to seamlessly provide the new service," Nokia claims.

Mary McDowell, Nokia executive vice president and chief development officer, said: "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 four 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."

The Nokia Money service will make its debut at Nokia World on the 2 and 3 September 2009 in Stuttgart and Nokia says it will be rolled out gradually to selected markets, beginning in early 2010. It has given no details of which markets will be the first to get the service.