The latest entrant to the customer demand list is mobile money services.

Apart from the traditional services such as bill payments, mobile banking and top-ups, these mobile money services are venturing into the new areas of mobile credits and insurance. Shoaib Khan, CEO of SK Designer, says: "Mobile money services are gaining leadership in the MEA region.


"Though the demand for mobile money services continues to be exponential in Africa, in the Middle East, it is not so much developed as the banks' population is much higher here. But I think it's a matter of time that the Middle East will also catch up with this trend."


Mobile Money System (MMS)
To this end, Orga Systems launched the Mobile Money System (MMS) at Mobile World Congress in February. "For the Middle East market, we are adding the Mobile Money suite that enables telecom operators and financial institutions to offer advanced mobile financial and payment services.

Cost-effective solution

"As mobile phones represent a cost-effective solution mobile money transfer and payment services will bridge the gap for unbanked users to access financial services," Younan says. "These facts further underline the importance of real-time based mobile money solutions, and how operators can make huge revenue streams offering an alternative to the existing traditional payment systems.

"In today's mobile money services, there are limitations whereby you cannot do transactions, for example, beyond $100 or $200 depending on the country's regulator," says Younan. Apart from enabling operators to offer traditional services such as mobile payment, bill payment, airtime selling, cash-in and cash-out, money transfer,  and prepaid top-ups, Orga's suite is stated to offer next generation mobile services providing the ability to do all these transactions, which integrates with the same platform that an operator is running.

                                         Consumers

"We are not only giving mobile money services to consumers as credits on their mobile phones, but also enable them to bridge with banks thus allowing customers to move money from mobile credit, not limiting to $100 or $200, to save the additional money into a bank or finanical institution," he adds.

Younan says that Orga is currently working with operators to provide the traditional mobile money services within the credit limit assigned by regulators.

"We are also working with financial service providers that enable us to open a bank account on an operator's customer's behalf and certify the movement of money from their mobile to a bank and vice versa. This facility allows customers to bring the money back as mobile credit, if need be.

"We are currently working towards bringing the ‘next generation of mobile money services' into the region. These services are expected to be launched during the second quarter of this year in Africa."

for more detail: http://www.itp.net/584597-mobile-money