CEO Carol Realini on What’s Next with Obopay and Mobile Payments
Carol Realini, CEO Obopay, Inc.
Carol Realini is the driving force behind Obopay which has allowed customers to send and receive money through mobile phone SMS since 2005. In this exclusive NEXTcast interview, Realini reveals Obopay’s strategy to bring mobile payments to the masses. Listen to the interview
Add comment March 9th, 2010
“We live in a world where human problems do not come permanently attached to national passports” – Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. In this rapidly changing world we need moments where we pause, step outside our traditional paths, try to connect the dots. This is the essence of the Spirit of Davos.
In the last ten years I have had the privilege to meet with top management from mobile and financial industry players, meet with Dr. Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize winner), interact with political and government leaders in various forums. This rubbing shoulders with powerful and influential people has prepared me somewhat for Davos.
That being said, I am anxious about how to best contribute as well as leverage this type of event. I have been told it is non-stop sessions from 7 AM until late hours of the evening. My objective is to orient myself quickly once I am on the ground and determine how to best engage. I have a “Davos Buddy”, Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Brightcove, who I meet with at the beginning of the conference. His role is to help me quickly orient and understand how to get the most out of Davos.
My companion at Davos
Attendees can’t bring other people from their company – the invitation is to the individual only; others won’t get passes for access to the sessions and even physical access into the area where the event takes place. Attendees can bring their spouses and spouses are full participants at the conference. My husband, Joe Tumminaro, doesn’t normally accompany me on business trips. He loves to travel but doesn’t want to be in interesting places but have me work and he then has to enjoy those places by himself. Not to mention he hates being called Mr. Realini.
Joe made an exception to his rule for WEF. He has many passions and is interested in environmental, security, and humanitarian issues – and of course he is passionate about Obopay. He will not only attend some of the sessions with me but also he plans to go to some I cannot. I have asked him to help me with this blog once we get to the conference so our blog followers can benefit. He has agreed.
Joe and I came to Switzerland a few days early so we could sightsee and get over jetlag. We are in St. Moritz now where the weather is incredible. Sunday we skied and on Monday we will visit a few surrounding towns and a sledge run from Preda to Bergun (over 6 kilometers) – what a treat.
Goals for Davos.
Learn new things; especially gain insights on how to best address the world’s most challenging problems.
Contribute to the dialogue; this includes making sure the attendees understand the power of mobile banking and payments and how that might be applied to some of the challenges we face.
Build relationships; especially interested in establishing connections with attendees who are potential distribution partners and government allies.
Build awareness; Make sure attendees are aware of mobile money and its potential role in addressing world challenges.
Schedule for the First 24 Hours
Tuesday
Wednesday
If we can fit them in
January 26th, 2010
Obopay CEO Carol Realini
What excites you about having Obopay’s mobile payment services operational in Kenya?
As many people know my experience while traveling in Africa was key to the founding of Obopay. While on a social-action mission I saw people with bags of devalued currency buying prepaid minutes in a mobile phone store – it looked exactly like an image you would expect to see in a bank.
So I asked why mobile phones couldn’t become defacto banks, allowing people to move money around in ways they never could before. This was especially exciting since only about 5% of all people in Africa are banked.
So from that beginning in Africa, the big idea of Obopay was to leverage the growing ubiquity of mobile phones to deliver financial services to all people.
This launch in Kenya is especially exciting since we with Essar Telecom are delivering on that promise. We are now operational in three countries on three continents – US, India, and Kenya.
Why did Obopay partner with Essar to deliver yuCash by Obopay?
As you may know, Essar Communications Holdings Limited, the telecom subsidiary of Essar Global Limited, invested in Obopay in 2008. They share our vision for financial inclusion, and delivering advanced mobile banking and payment services. Although yu is new to Kenya, they are the fastest growing mobile operator in East Africa.
How do you imagine yuCash by Obopay changing people’s lives and small businesses in Africa?
I can image a lot. In some ways, Kenya is one of the most advanced mobile banking and payments market in the world. Already in Kenya, consumers know mobile banking changes things. Money can safely be stored on their phone, sending and receiving money can be done reliably, securely and instantly via their mobile phone, and now consumers are beginning to look for solutions to do even more with mobile money.
With our initial launch, we have already included new features and capabilities consumers are asking for. YuCash by Obopay displays a host of unique features which enhance the subscriber’s experience over and above just sending and receiving money. One very useful feature is the ability of a consumer to get a complete record of their transactions of the past 30 days – enabling them to keep a clear track on their transactions, eliminating the need to keep a manual record.
Banking empowers people in their life and work. Mobile Money brings banking to millions of people in Africa that have for so long been unserved by traditional bank methods. In the long term, I can image mobile money being the most important currency in Kenya – more important than cash, check or cards. Obopay is very excited about being there and teaming with such innovative partners as Essar Telecom, yu and Equity Bank.
What is different about yuCash by Obopay mobile payment services?
Already the service has unique features for Kenya; transaction history, invitations for family and friends, on the mobile phone help, short messages with transactions, and the ability to request money. Request money is a unique feature that enables the recipient of the money to initiate the transaction and request the sender to send a certain amount of money. The sender only has to confirm and have sufficient funds to send and the transaction gets concluded.
And this is just the beginning. The Obopay platform is the leading global mobile payment platform – and the number of great partners is growing.
You can tell I am really excited about the partnership with Essar Telecom, Equity Bank, and the launch of yuCash by Obopay. This is the realization of my dream of Obopay in Africa.
4 comments December 16th, 2009
Obopay today announced it has been chosen by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer 2010 for its innovation, transformational technology, leadership and substantial long-term impact on businesses and society.
Obopay is one of 26 companies from around the world to be honored with this prestigious award. In addition, Obopay is one of only 11 companies in the Information Technologies, Telecommunications and New Media category and is the only financial services provider receiving the award.
Below are answers from Obopay CEO Carol Realini on what it means to be honored:
What does it mean for Obopay to be honored as a Technology Pioneer 2010 by the World Economic Forum?
We are incredibly honored to be recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer. It is a badge of honor that we wear proudly. This award underscores our vision and corporate commitment to empowering all people with access to affordable banking through mobile technology.
The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is the world’s top international event bringing together business and political leaders from around the world to discuss global challenges and how to improve the state of the world. As a result of Obopay being named Technology Pioneer 2010, I will join the Annual Meeting in Davos in January. I am very excited to be invited and I look forward to making valuable contributions and helping to further the global mission of financial inclusion.
Why is Obopay life changing?
Well, it is life changing depending upon where you are in the world. Lot’s of people don’t have access to basic banking services. That’s a fact. The statistics are sobering and the truth is that more than half of the adults in the world don’t have access to savings, credit or electronic payments which makes life incredibly difficult. Some people have to travel great distances to get access to basic banking and must wait in long lines. Others have no safe place to put their money, so the money gets lost or stolen. And, it makes it so unproductive for businesses. But, the ubiquitous mobile phone network is the catalyst that enables Obopay to deliver low cost banking services to people who have mobile phones, which is about everybody, at scale, and at a low cost.
What is the future potential of Obopay?
Obopay’s vision is to empower everyone with universal access to financial services through any mobile phone. There is a vast opportunity ahead of us and the right time is now; the mobile phone has the unique ability to change the way people in all markets interact with money and with their loved ones as well as impact how small businesses transact. The mobile phone is in an exponentially better position than the internet was to have an impact in people’s lives around the world, not just how we communicate but how we interact, how we go about our days and simplify our lives.
The landline brought many communications access. But, there was a natural ceiling. It could only go so far. The same is true of the traditional bank accounts and models. Have we reached that ceiling too? No. However, people still have limited access to banking. Mobile banking and payments is a different approach to banking. We can reach more people. In the next 5, even 10 years, just imagine that a billion more people can get access to bank accounts, credit, and electronic payments, just like everyone now has access to online communications.
Is Mobile Banking and Payments just for emerging markets?
No, the opportunity lives with the unbanked, under-banked as well as those that do existing bank relations in ALL markets – both emerging and developed markets. By launching our services in the US in 2005 and in India in 2008, we were the first to operate in both emerging and developed markets.
There is clearly a need in emerging markets because the traditional banking system can not catch up fast enough. I’m a true believer that it is also important in the United States because we’re the source of a major global network. The same is true in Europe. For example, if I left my family in the Philippines and went to work in France, I could, through the U.S. or Europe, interact and send money from one market to another. We also neglect to realize that there is a lot of unbanked people right here at home. More than 30-50 million families in the U.S. do not have affordable (or have limited access) to financial products.
How does Obopay plan to scale?
We built to scale from the beginning. Yes, Obopay is a young company, but we have already set the stage to tap into the bigger ecosystem by establishing key global relationships with global network providers such as Nokia and Mastercard. It’s all about global scale and global reach. We take a holistic approach pulling all the different stakeholders together including banks, operators, mobile device providers, M-commerce providers, distribution, merchants and small businesses to deliver affordable mobile banking and payments to all people regardless of geography. We are at the forefront of transforming the global banking industry and creating the next generation payment system. These are very exciting times!
You can also view Carol’s video interview by the WEF below:
1 comment December 3rd, 2009
Why did you start Obopay?
The idea for mobile phones to serve as the catalyst to deliver financial services was seeded when I was on a trip in Africa to support social entrepreneurs. I was in Congo (DRC), where the infrastructure was inadequate – power, roads, electricity. Yet in a place where so little worked, mobile phones were connecting large numbers of people who never had a land line.
This was in 2002, when there were only about 1.5 billion mobile phones in the world. It wasn’t obvious to me before that trip, but once I saw how people in Africa were using mobile phones, it became clear that sometime soon everyone in the world would be connected via the mobile phone. Today, there are more than 4 billion people with mobile phones, out of a total world population of 6 billion people. I knew that this was going to transform the world of communications.
Why mobile payments and mobile banking?
When I got home from Africa, I couldn’t stop thinking about mobile phones and banking. It was a simple idea – use the soon-to-be-ubiquitous model phone network to deliver financial services to everyone with a mobile phone. This would give everyone with a mobile phone access to basic banking services –savings, credit and electronic payments.
The idea had two dimensions – first, mobilizing the existing banking products, and second, developing new low cost mobile- based services that would be affordable to the underserved. The potential was huge – about 1 billion traditional consumers and 3 billion underserved. And connecting the two was key since so many of the traditional consumers send money to the underserved.
But, you were in retirement, no?
I was retired from technology, but helping non-profits foster entrepreneurship in developing countries. This non-profit work gave me easy access to other people who were thinking about the potential of mobile financial services. Many connections really came from the microfinance community, they were always talking about technology to propel things forward and mobile payments was one of the special topics at microfinance conferences.
It was not my plan to go back to work. After finishing extensive research, the founding team came together to make our idea a reality. We saw our careers in a different context – the three of us felt very passionate about the potential of mobile financial services and saw our past careers as great preparation for building Obopay.
What’s the connection between what you experienced in the Congo and what you started in the U.S.?
The connection is everyone needs banking. In places like the US, most people have good access – although there is still a large segment of our population that is underbanked (overcharged and underserved). In the U.S., we can give people banking and payments via mobile and do a better job at a lower price for the underserved. For emerging markets/developing countries where the banking infrastructure can be quite weak, mobile will leap frog traditional approaches and be the primary way people do banking.
In most places in the world, the simple act of paying a merchant or holding money you have in a bank is not easy to do and the impact on small business, individuals and families is huge. And, it has all sorts of impact on the economy, personal family and small business success.
What background work did you do to understand the market opportunity what drove you forward to start Obopay?
We did quite a lot of global research to understand what early projects were happening in the world – Korea, Philippeans and Africa. At the time, the most advanced mobile money implementations were in Japan and the Philippines. These implementations were just beginning and were local to those markets but demonstrated the potential. Since then, there have been other successes and proof points, but it was that research project (again I was not going to go back to work) that really propelled me forward to start Obopay. At the end of the research project, I read the research report. At the beginning of reading the research report, my career was behind me and at the end of the research report, my career was in front of me. I got so excited and passionate about the opportunity to leverage the growing number of mobile phones to enable financial services, I just had to come out of retirement and start Obopay.
What did you think would happen with the research if you didn’t start Obopay?
I don’t really know. I thought we would publish the research or maybe get some entrepreneur to take it on. If we just published the research we would never know the full impact of disseminating the information. I probably would have stayed living in Aspen with my husband and become a really great skier. But, that wouldn’t have been nearly as exciting as Obopay. At Obopay, we have the opportunity to empower people’s lives and change the way businesses transact. What could be more meaningful?
In Part 2, we’ll hear from Carol about the “early days of Obopay,” surprising feedback from early investors, and how the Company’s partnerships evolved.
December 1st, 2009
We’ve recently been writing a good number of posts about how small businesses can benefit from a variety of series. We just want to take a quick moment to let you know that Obopay also helps small businesses as the company has a variety of tools for a small (and medium) sized business to accept electronic payments through the business website or from a mobile phone. With Obopay it’s free for the business to receive a payment from a customer who pays the business from their credit or debit card or from their bank account.
Give it a try and let us know what you think on Twitter.
The Obopay Team
November 30th, 2009
PaidContent.org asked if virtual currencies can help bridge the gap between paid and free content in this article. It’s no surprise that “Virtual goods and micro-transactions have been driving the billion-dollar online games industry across Asia for years,” as the piece states. What’s most interesting is how virtual currencies can also help the online publishing market. The feature points to four points on how to make this happen, the right economic climate; getting people to pay in increments is easier than you think; readily adoptable payment platforms already exist – Obopay has one! – and future acquisitions and investments are on the horizon.
November 10th, 2009
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