Deutsche Bank’s mobile payments & other mobile payments news

Explaining the rationale behind Deutsche Bank’s move into cross-border mobile payments, Daniel Marovitz, global head of products at GTB, said: “Mobile technology moves on apace and we believe now is the time to take a solution to the global market. Around 61 per cent of the world’s population now has a mobile phone and its penetration continues to increase, while the use of cash declines.”

• In the UK, the latest research from the Future Foundation think-tank, commissioned by MoniLink, which provide mobile banking services to HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS among others, shows that mobile banking is growing strongly and is now the fastest growing method to check the status of your account, with 25 per cent more people using it since October of last year, representing five per cent of the UK population. Payments transactions are expected to grow as the service expands.

• Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, which specialises in mobile messaging, is teaming up with Swisscontact, the Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation, a leading global development organisation, to encourage the development of Mobile Money Transfer (MMT) and Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) services in emerging markets.

“In order to build a favourable environment for end-to-end MMT and MMU solutions, regulatory, technological, financial and educational challenges need to be resolved,” explains Matthew Talbot, vice president of mCommerce at Sybase 365. “The cooperation between us and Swisscontact will help address these challenges by combining commercial with social interests and delivering innovative mCommerce solutions for millions of mobile users.”

The number of mobile phone subscribers is expected to reach 5 billion by 2012, largely due to growth in emerging markets. In absolute terms, this is also the potential size for mobile money opportunities, as all mobile phones are capable of sending and receiving data via SMS. The uptake for mobile money services in emerging markets will be driven largely by domestic or cross-border person-to-person fund transfers. Today, less than 15 per cent of the population in emerging markets has access to bank accounts, while mobile phones provide access to basic financial services and micro finances for both the unbanked and the under banked. One in 10 people around the world undertake remittances and 70 per cent of migrant workers remit funds on a regular basis.