By Dusan Belic on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 AM PSTIn Barcelona 2009 Summer
If you’ve been reading IntoMobile carefully, you know about Obopay. They are a mobile payment service provider that got its funding from such companies as Citibank and Nokia Ventures. That fact by itself should be a reason enough to think they’re onto something. At the Mobile Money Summit, I had an opportunity to sit with Obopay’s CEO and founder – Carol L. Realini.
Right from the bat, I could see she’s an extraordinary person. Obopay is her 4th company, and her previous one was in providing technology solutions to financial services companies. Carol said that she was inspired to create Obopay when she was in Africa in a mobile phone store, where she saw how people pay for their pre-paid mobile phone service. At that time, the future founder of Obopay was working for an NGO, supporting entrepreneurs.
Here’s the recap of what I’ve learned from talking with her:
- She emphasized Obopay’s deal with MasterCard that will allows them to reach more banks and financial institutions faster.
- Obopay sees mobile payments as something that needs to work across multiple carriers, to be accessible to all mobile phone users, whether they’re unbanked or no.
- Obopay works with regulators in markets where it conducts business to get all needed licenses. Their solution/service/”the way they operate” is adaptable to all regulatory environments, strict or not.
- They want to work on all platforms, not just mobile – she mentioned they’re working to bring Obopay to social networks. iPhone app is coming this summer and Android till the end of the year.
- Every Obopay user has the same user interface for making and managing his or her mobile payments.
- Obopay has about 200 employees of which about the half is in the U.S. and the other half is in India. The plan is to expand to Western Europe and Africa later in the year.
- In U.S., AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless are distributing Obopay’s app. In India, they have a “tighter marketing relationship” with Loop and Aircell.
And that’s about all I caught from Carol. She is an inspiring woman and her company is certainly worth watching for. And that’s what we at IntoMobile will keep doing, have no doubts about it…
Related News from IntoMobile
June 23rd, 2009
Marin Perez at InformationWeek reports that MasterCard has rolled out in the United States a payment service that enables users to do person-to-person transfers with their cell phones or smartphones. The service, called MoneySend, is a technology collaboration with Obopay, and it lets customers send and receive funds through text messages, mobile browsers, dedicated mobile applications, and a desktop PC. The company said this service is a flexible solution that has multiple real-life applications. One example is that parents could use it to send money to college kids, and it could potentially be used for virtual goods in social networks as well.
June 17th, 2009
Michael Diamond interviewed by Brad Garland of Banktastic.com
Banktastic.com has just released an interview of Obopay’s SVP of Business Development, Michael Diamond.
The audio podcast covers just about everything you’d want to know about Obopay today — from basic Obopay uses in day-to-day life to Obopay’s partnership with Grameen at Bankabillion.org.
Michael even tells us he uses Obopay to pay his daughter’s piano teacher. Good stuff!
Listen to the podcast. (Duration 25:57)
Thanks to Brad and Michael for a great interview!
Banktastic.com describes itself “very simply a ’social networking & knowledge hub’ for the financial industry.” Learn more about Banktastic.
Technorati Tags: michael diamond, obopay, brad garland, banktastic, interview, bankabillion, podcast
December 2nd, 2008
Do you have a bank account with Citibank? In October, Obopay partnered with Citibank to offer Obopay’s convenient mobile technology to Citibank customers. This pilot program is the first time a bank has offered mobile-to-mobile money transfer in the U.S. Click here to sign up.
Of course, as always, you can still use Obopay even if you don’t have a bank account or do your banking elsewhere.
Fees or Foes?
Commenting on the Citibank partnership, Judy DeHaven of the New Jersey Star Ledger asks Are you paying with cash, credit or phone?
The companies envision people paying their baby sitter, sending money to college students or reimbursing friends, all using this new form of “m-commerce.”
Of course, there are fees — 25 cents for each transaction, paid by the sender. Non-Citi customers also can set up accounts, but will have to pay a 2.5 percent fee when they load money.
That just proves that even in the brave new world of m-commerce, nothing is free.
It is indeed a brave new world — each day we depend more and more on our phones for staying connected and sending money to loved ones or paying people who provide services. The convenience of using the phone instead of cash or checks is totally worth modest, competitive fees. What do you think?
Technorati Tags: obopay, citibank, m-commerce, mobile money
November 20th, 2008
We just successfully implemented of SafeNet’s hardware security module (HSM)! We know how important security is to everyone, especially when it comes to your money. Therefore, we are constantly doing what we can to make things more secure for our users.
I mean, it makes sense. Mobile money. Both sound like they could have a lot of security challenges, which is why we are doing whatever possible to keep things safe around here.
“After the stringent evaluation process we found out that SafeNet’s HSM provides higher security than its competition. Since it is a hardware box, it is more secure than software encryption. Although the product provides similar security standards to competitor’s products, in terms of performance SafeNet’s HSM scored much higher. SafeNet HSM supported 1200 transactions per second (TPS), whereas products from other vendors supported only 20 TPS for the same price,” said an Obopay spokesperson. “All of this coupled with SafeNet’s unparalleled technical support, made them a sure winner.”
You can see the article here on Yahoo.
Technorati Tags: news, hardware, obopay, yahoo
June 4th, 2008
For those are you who aren’t familiar with the Octopus card, here’s how Wikipedia describes it to be:
“The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used to transfer electronic payments in online or offline systems in Hong Kong. Originally launched in September 1997 to collect fares for the city’s mass transit system, the Octopus card system has since grown into a widely used payment system for virtually all public transport in Hong Kong. It is also used for payment at convenience stores, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, on-street parking meters, car parks, and other point-of-sale applications such as service stations and vending machines.”
Read the article on Wikipedia.
This card is pretty amazing. The card is magnetic so you don’t even need to take it out of your pocket. Just swipe your purse or wallet across the reader and you are good to go.
You can use the Octopus card just about everywhere in Hong Kong. I believe it first started with the MTR, the super convenient subway system in Hong Kong, and then it expanded to just about all other forms of public transportation. I’ve been told that you can even buy groceries with it too!
Talk about way of the future. This essentially eliminates having to carry cash around. Just imagine if you can do everything from your phone, then you don’t even need to carry a card around!
Technorati Tags: mobile, money, octopus card, hong kong, subway, mobile money, MTR, wikipedia
May 7th, 2008
We announced about a month ago that we released this new feature that allows you to literally transfer money to/from ANY US bank. It’s about time we talk about it a little bit.
As far as I know, this is by far one of the most revolutionary development in the mobile money transfer space. We now have the capability for you to send money to anyone, regardless of where you bank. If you want to send money from Bank of America to your friend’s Citi account, no problem! If your friend wants to send money to you from their HSBC account, he can do that too!
This is similar to a wire transfer, one of the traditional bank features. Unlike a wire transfer though, this cost so much less. For a limited time, Obopay will only charge you 10 cents, whereas a money transfer usually cost at least $30.
Pretty amazing if you ask me.
April 21st, 2008
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