One of the hot topics that I'm predicting is going to dominateour thinking by the end of this year is the topic of Mobile Money. Thishas had an interesting niche role for the past few years in Africa and Asiawhere the mobile infrastructure & credit is being used as an alternative tolegal tender in regimes with either high inflation or little generalaccess to banking facilities. That in itself is an interestingdevelopment, but in parallel with this we have seen a serious growth in mobilepayment, using near field technology, in developed nations such as Japan & Korea for small purchases likeparking, vending machines and cinema tickets.
An announcement today from China Mobile that they are buying a 20% stake in theShanghai Pudong Bank isanother very significant development. This announcement states that "...ChinaMobile joins telecommunications operators in Japan and South Korea that haveagreements with banks to offer payment services via cellphones as a way togenerate additional revenue. Most recently, South Korea's biggest telecomoperator by revenue, SK Telecom Co., agreed late last year to buy a 49% stakein the credit card unit of Hana Financial Group for $343 million to introduceproducts that bundle banking and telecom services...".
We already are seeing lite versions of this in Europe with mobile micro payments facilitated by SMS etc.., but I can't envision a future where the full-on payments approach doesn't rapidly migrate to Europe and USA, where an overwhelming portion of the population view their mobile device as the one device they never want to leave (and thats ahead of wallet, purse, car keys, medication, etc..). So keep a weather eye out for M&A discussions between banks and major operators!
Anyone seeing this happening already?
Posted
03-11-2010 1:17 AM
by
Martin Creaner