Bob Borchers talks about VC trends and the future of mobile in general. He sees a bright future for mobile payments: “[F]rom a venture capital perspective, I don’t think investing in app companies has nearly the opportunity for success some people think it does…..I would much rather be looking at businesses that provide platforms that make apps successful, that support mobile ads, mobile payments — the things where you don’t have to pick what the next great app is going to be.”
September 8th, 2009
“The announcement on Wednesday by Nokia, the world’s largest cell-phone maker, that it will launch a mobile-payments service is likely to give a competitive leg-up to Obopay Inc., the Redwood City, Calif.-based mobile-payments processor that developed the software for the new venture, called Nokia Money.”
The article noted Nokia’s news release’s stating that the service will be open and interoperable with other payment services, and that it will run on other manufacturers’ handsets. According to Realini, “In all cases, their [Nokia’s] service commitment is bigger than handsets…..there’s nothing about our relationship that would prevent us from having an offering on other people’s handsets.”
In the article Realini also said that Obopay was making good progress abroad and that with the possible exception of Kenya, no mobile-payments provider had locked up any country yet, and compared the potential to that of the Internet in 1993: “There’s just a huge amount of opportunity.”
September 1st, 2009
On September 3rd in Stuttgart Carol Realini will deliver a keynote titled, “Cash Goes Mobile.” The Nokia World bio page pays tribute to Carol’s global vision: “Carol Realini recognized early on the need and opportunity in both industrialized and developing nations for mobile financial services to serve people everywhere.” A webcast of Carol’s speech will be available here.
We’ll post the speech here next week. For more information on Nokia world, or to register, go to Nokia World.
August 31st, 2009
Today Nokia announced its entry into mobile banking with Obopay. In March of this year, the world leader in mobile communications invested in the mobile payments provider, now Nokia is taking the relationship one step further with its entry into banking.
August 26th, 2009
Will the mobile phone, aided by NFC, “stage a coup” over the traditional wallet?. CNN cites analysis by Forrester and Gartner to say, “maybe”, discussing security concerns, and that acceptance of global trends by U.S. consumers is not automatic. Mobile banking and payments by SMS are mentioned in passing.
August 14th, 2009
Smartphones, 3G networks and cheaper mobile data plans are driving mobile banking penetration, and a comScore survey last month showed that 44% of smartphone owners bank via the mobile web. Mark Walsh notes that a recent IDC report says “banks still have to find a ‘killer app; that pushes mobile banking into the mainstream and suggests payment services could do the trick.“
August 12th, 2009
Carol Coye Benson from PaymentsViews talks with Michael Diamond, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Obopay, about Obopay’s current status and future plans.
August 6th, 2009
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