With an objective to highlight the mobile phone utility and the next level of mobile telephony, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), today organized a national symposium on financial inclusion through mobile phones.
With nearly 440 million subscribers, mobile phones cover nearly 40% of the country’s population. Given the unprecedented coverage, mobile phones are increasingly been seen as agents of socio-economic development – reaching out opportunities to people and places way beyond any other instrument.
“Financial Inclusion and penetration of organized banking among the rural Indian population is a key priority area for an all inclusive growth. There is a huge opportunity in terms of further improving existing set of methodologies for financial transactions. Mobile phones fit into the picture so well, as they could take the financial inclusion initiative to the next level. Mobile payments or financial transactions through mobile devices carry huge importance and relevance for the Indian banking scenario. Government have understood it’s potential and working very aggressively towards enabling this system as penetrative as possible,” said MrR Chandrashekhar, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India while delivering a special address at the event.
October 12th, 2009
In developing nations, women are using their mobile devices as a communications and mobile banking hub, writes Latoya Peterson at Jezebel.com. She also quotes the 2008, New York Times Magazine feature, “asking ‘Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?‘ The story followed ‘human behavior researcher’ Jan Chipchase in his Nokia-sponsored quests to understand how people use their cellphones in a variety of environments.” Latoya also quoted stories in the publications below:
In Rural Africa, A Fertile Market For Mobile Phones [NY Times]
Can The Cellphone Help End Global Poverty? [NY Times]
Mobile Marvels [The Economist]
Beyond Voice [The Economist]
October 7th, 2009
A new study by Javelin says mobile banking “is changing how consumers manage their finances today, which in turn will change how consumers pay for goods in the future.” The report, 2009 Mobile-Banking and Smartphone Forecast features five-year forecasts for mobile banking.
* Nearly half of mobile-phone owners currently have access to mobile banking today.
* By 2014, 45% of mobile-phone users will actually use mobile banking.
* 99 million U.S. adults will conduct mobile banking transactions at least once per year by 2014 – with 52% of mobile-phone users relying on smartphones.
* Mobile banking will rival online banking, with the former used as a “remote control” and the latter as a detailed form of control panel for more complex transactions.
“Just as the iPod changed the music industry and their business models, our data shows that iPhone users are changing the banking industry by leading the way in monitoring and managing finances through mobile devices,” said Mark Schwanhausser, Financial Services Channels Analyst.
September 10th, 2009
A public review period has begun. The MMA is comprised of agencies, advertisers, hand-held device manufacturers, carriers and operators, retailers, software providers and service providers, and other companies focused on marketing with mobile devices.
August 10th, 2009
According to a recent poll taken by Nokia, only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones even though most have several old devices lying around in drawers and cabinets that they no longer want! The survey also found that three out of every four people didn’t even know it was possible to recycle phones at all. This may not sound like that big of a deal, but given the fact that over 3 billion people have Nokia cell phones alone, and given the fact that the average customer has owned 5 different mobile devices, the number of unused, un-recycled cell phones is staggering. Markus Terho, Director of Environmental Affairs at Nokia, comments further in a Cellular News article:
“It is clear from this survey that when mobile devices finally reach the end of their lives that very few of them are recycled. Many people are simply unaware that these old and unused mobiles lying around in drawers can be recycled or how to do this. Nokia is working hard to make it easier, providing more information and expanding our global take-back programs. If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device we could save 240,000 tons of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gasses to the same effect as taking 4 million cars off the road. By working together, small individual actions could add up to make a big difference.”
I never realized that phones could be recycled, or the impact that such an easy action could potentially have. Nokia is doing a great service in building awareness, and I really do hope that this information reaches people. All it takes is a trip to the nearest mobile store to play a part in preserving the future.
Technorati Tags: nokia, nokia survey, recycle, recycle phones, greenhouse gasses, raw materials, mobile devices, mobile store
July 8th, 2008
“Microsoft and Research in Motion announced Monday that consumer e-mail and instant messaging services from Microsoft would be available on BlackBerry mobile devices later this summer. The move demonstrates both that BlackBerrys aren’t just for business messaging anymore and that Microsoft isn’t depending only on Windows Mobile for its mobile strategy.” Read the article as reported on Information Week.
Sounds like a win-win for both Microsoft and Blackberry…
Technorati Tags: microsoft, blackberry, rim, news, business, email, live, mobile
May 13th, 2008
Here’s how Google describes Android on their blog:
“Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile. Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.” Check out the article on the official Google blog.
Not sure how this is going to really affect us yet, but it sounds pretty cool.
Technorati Tags: google, android, mobile, news, blog, google blog, phone
May 9th, 2008
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