Freemium Model for Mahala Mobile Banking

Mahala, a new mobile banking service, will launch in South Africa in May 2011, using a "freemium" model. Peer-to-peer money transfer, money deposits or withdrawals and retail payments are offered without charge. Mahala expects to make money by selling additional services to users. See more information about Mahala here: http://www.mahala.co/

Mahala is likely to disrupt existing mobile banking providers in South Africa, as those providers now charge for transactions, generally based on the gross amount of each transaction or a flat fee per transaction.



South Africa is by far the country where mobile banking is most widely used on the continent. Still, about half of South Africa citizens don’t have bank accounts. Nearly 40 percent are either unemployed or work informal jobs paid in cash. Bank charges are high and banking regulations are so strict – such as proof of regular income – that they prevent many poor people form having formal bank accounts. Moreover, most South Africans live in rural or semi-urban areas where access to a bank is very limited or non-existent.

First National Bank of South Africa has over two million customers and attracts about 90,000 on a monthly basis. In 2009, FNB mobile banking customers made 56 million transactions worth the value of ZAR7.2 billion. Customers can send money to anyone in South Africa, whether they have an account with FNB or not.

South Africans often paid couriers the equivalent of USD 30 to USD 50 per transaction to deliver cash to relatives. Now they can do it for only USD 0.50 through Wizzit mobile bank networks.

Flash Mobile Cash by Eezi gives home shop owners the tools to be the bank for communities where formal banking infrastructure does not exist. The home shops, equipped with shared-phone ATMs, enable communities to withdraw, deposit or borrow small amounts of cash from their local township residence. The shopkeeper, as the banker, transacts using a GSM enabled device supplied by Shared-phone. “

read more here

Mobile Payment Models Show Why Mobile Service Providers and App Providers Are in the Business

Some would argue there are just three primary ways for U.S. consumers to make retail payments, and the methods show why mobile service providers, application providers and banks are getting into the business.

The three primary methods, some would say, include direct billing by a mobile service provider, paying by credit card or debit card and using an "online wallet" such as PayPal or Google Checkout.

Direct operator billing has been possible for many years, but relatively few retailers have embraced it, in many cases because the transaction charges are higher than when using a credit card or debit card. That has been a problem especially for the sort of small-retail-value transactions many believe will drive use of mobile payments.

Credit cards and debit cards are routinely used by consumers for online commerce as well as retail purchases, and mobile payments simply represent a move by credit and debit card issuers to hang on to market share and revenues they already are getting.

Online wallet services such as PayPal, Amazon Payments, and Google Checkout mostly have been used for online payments and money transfers, typically by use of applications that combine log-ins, passwords, shipping addresses, and credit card details in one central place, linking credit card accounts with the other payment process features.

In all three cases, mobile payments represents a move from an existing offline or online payment mode into a mobile mode, where the phone displaces the credit or debit card.

So the interest in mobile payments is rather obvious. Banks that issue credit cards and debit cards want to hang on to the business they've got, while mobile service providers and payment application vendors want to conquer new markets that represent net revenue growth.

Understanding Mobile Payment Models | Banking & Finance > Banking, Lending & Credit Services from AllBusiness.com

30 Million U.S. Mobile Users Access Financial Accounts Using Mobiles

A new comScore report found that 39 million U.S. mobile users accessed financial services accounts (bank, credit card, or brokerage) using their mobile device in the fourth quarter of 2010, an increase of 54 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009.

Mobile Financial Service Audience (Accessed Bank, Credit Card or Brokerage Account) 3 Month Avg. Ending Dec-2010 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Dec-2009 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Total Unique Audience (MM)
	Q4 2009	Q4 2010	Percent Change
Accessed Mobile Financial Services*	19.3	29.8	54%
Accessed via Mobile Browser	11.8	18.6	58%
Accessed via Application	4.9	10.8	120%
Accessed via SMS	6.0	8.1	35%

Number of U.S. Mobile Financial Account Users Surges 54 Percent to 30 Million in Past Year - comScore

Swiss Mobile Banking App

The "iBank CH Mobile Banking" app sold by Recon IT Services GmbH provides an example of mobile banking as it appears on an Apple iPhone. Some apps primarily are "information" apps that allow users to track balances or make transfers between accounts.

Other apps are designed more specifically to support retail purchases.

read more here

In 4G, Verizon Wireless Emphasizes Quality

If bandwidth is a measure of fourth-generation network quality, Verizon Wireless stands out from all the other carriers, according to a test by RootMetrics at some locations in Seattle, Wash. With the caveat that results will vary from location to location, across networks as well as on any single network, as well as the obvious observation that a lightly-loaded, brand-new network will not have much congestion because it has few customers, the test shows a wide disparity in experienced speeds.

read more here

Does this look like a reasonable alignment of value and price?

http://www.businessinsider.com/charts-of-the-week-the-new-york-times-delusional-digital-pricing-scheme-2011-3/the-real-reason-att-is-buying-t-mobile-2

Connected devices are one major reason mobile service providers need more spectrum

Some might argue it is T-Mobile USA's spectrum that is most important to AT&T, not the subscribers. Connected devices consume at least an order of magnitude more bandwidth than smartphones.
http://www.businessinsider.com/charts-of-the-week-the-new-york-times-delusional-digital-pricing-scheme-2011-3/did-groupon-have-a-terrible-february-3

SinglePlatform Auto-Updates Multiple Social Sites

Small business owners are busy people. Updating multiple social media and websites with new information takes time, considerable time if sites need to be updated frequently. SinglePlatform runs a publishing network that updates such sites without requiring discrete sign-ons and postings. Restaurants are a customer set that SinglePlatform seems to be getting traction with, providing an easy way for restaurants to easily menus and specials, for example.

Restaurants have a particularly difficult web presence environment, given the number of review sites, guide sites and travel sites where their information is relevant, and where restaurants would prefer to be visible. Identifying and then updating hundreds of such sites, in real time, obviously is a chore. A big chore. SinglePlatform aims to automate the updating of hundreds to thousands of such sites.

The service also features a built-in pay-per-call ability, which allows users to take action immediately, and thereby provides both a direct response vehicle and campaign or site tracking. SinglePlatform charges businesses a yearly fee to use the platform, as well as a flat-fee per call generated over a certain length. In return, they provide direct user metrics, including time on the site, pages viewed per visits and visits per user per month.

SinglePlatform provides hotels, restaurants, bars and PR firms a unified way to manage review sites, mobile applications, local guides, as well as social media pages, website, and mobile-optimized sites. The chief limitatiion would seem to be the actual social networks, hotels, search engines, local directories, city guides, newspapers, and mobile applications that have signed up to be part of the network.

SinglePlatform

Dwolla Launches FiSync, Cuts ACH Wait Times by 2 to 3 Days

 Dwolla is launching "FiSync," a mobile payments front end allowing FiSync will let members of partner financial institutions send and receive money by a number of methods, including phone, web, Twitter and Facebook as well as at retail locations.

Dwolla FiSync will eliminate as much as two to three days of delay when Automated Clearing House transactions occur, and will allow users to directly transfer cash from their bank accounts, without the need for a pre-loaded Dwolla account.

For consumers, Dwolla provides the ability to send, receive, and request funds from any other user, charging merchants and others receiving funds 25 cents per transaction. 

Investors Talk about Mobile Banking in Africa

 Hunter Newby, investor in Africxpress, and Eliot Samuels, PilotRock Capital, talk about mobile banking in Africa. 

How Important Can Twitter Become?

So far, Twitter has not achieved the broad usage or financial value Facebook has. But some think Twitter will achieve substantial success and leadership in the next era of Internet computing.

98% Smartphone Ownership at South by Southwest

A Google survey at South by Southwest found 98 percent of survey respondents have a smartphone. That's what you call serious adoption.

Google Witholds Honeycomb

Google says it will delay the distribution of its newest Android source code, dubbed Honeycomb, at least for the foreseeable future. The search giant says the software, which is tailored specifically for tablet computers that compete against Apple's iPad, is not yet ready to be altered by outside programmers and customized for other devices, such as phones.

Unless you believe Google has suddenly decided Android isn't open source, you would tend to think Google isn't yet happy with Honeycomb in some significant ways, and doesn't think it is ready for general release, yet.

Google Holds Honeycomb Tight - BusinessWeek

AT&T, T-Mobile USA Acquisition Document

Unless you are a regulatory attorney or a merger specialist, you will not enjoy reading this document, which outlines the terms for AT&T's proposed purchase of T-Mobile USA. But here it is.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/732717/000119312511072458/dex21.htm

Apple Will Be Bigger Than HP And IBM

Apple will pass IBM in terms of annual revenue in 2012, and will pass Hewlett-Packard in 2013, predicts George Colony, Forrester Research CEO.

“They’ll be bigger than IBM next year, and they’ll be bigger than HP the year after that,” says Colony, who predicted that Apple would eventually earn $200 billion in revenues, and post sales growth exceeding 50 percent through the next two years. Demand for the iPad and other Apple devices will fuel that expansion, Colony says.

Hewlett-Packard had sales of $126 billion in the year that ended in October and IBM’s revenue was $99.9 billion last year, making them the largest technology companies, respectively, by sales. Apple ranks number one by market capitalization.

We might argue about what all of that implies for "leadership" or "innovation" or any number of other dimensions. But technology watchers are on the lookout for leadership in the post-PC era of computing, for the simple reason that no firm has lead in more than one era.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-24/apple-50-sales-growth-may-continue-through-2012-on-mobile-boom.html