Mobile Payment Magazine

Starbucks Mobile M-Payment May Be Tipping Point for Mobile Payments

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Drew Sievers believes Starbucks’ rollout of an app-based mobile payments system to more than 7,500 locations nationwide could represent a tipping point toward mainstream acceptance of the phone as a means to make purchases. And, ultimately, that adoption could pave the way for future advances in mobile and Near Field Communications payments.

Sievers, the co-founder and CEO of mFoundry, the mobile banking and payments solutions provider behind the app, says that Starbucks saw the ability for its customers to make payments through their mobile phone as a game changer. “They wouldn’t have done this if they didn’t believe it wasn’t valuable to them,” he adds.

via Bank Systems & Technology

mFoundry Named Entrepreneurial Company of the Year by Frost and Sullivan

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The mobile banking and payments industry in the United States faces many challenges, including positioning mobile banking as a strategic differentiation tool, integrating multiple categories of mobile financial services in a coherent framework, and the challenges of a one-size-fits-all-strategy.

Other challenges include offering a consistent experience across all banking modes, allocating resources towards pursuing new opportunities by taking a long-term view of the market potential, establishing strategic agreements with the traditional financial processing organizations to leverage their strong capabilities in enabling banking and payments, and providing in-depth reporting and feedback to the customer financial institutions (FIs).

Recently, Frost & Sullivan analyzed the mobile banking market, and has awarded mFoundry with its Entrepreneurial Company of the Year award for the company’s strong performance in the past 12 months and continued execution on highly differentiating growth strategies.

“mFoundry has emerged as a preferred provider of mobile banking and payment services in the U.S. mobile financial services markets,” notes Frost & Sullivan senior analyst Vikrant Gandhi. “What sets the company apart from competitors is its ability to continuously evolve in line with the changing needs of the customers and seamlessly update its platform with minimal disruption to its installed base of users.”

mFoundry has adopted a few highly effective growth strategies to achieve success. Firstly, it provides a capable, scalable and secure set of offerings targeted at different types of FIs (both large and small) with a clear, phased roadmap for associated mobile banking and mobile payment services.

The software offers one of the most comprehensive sets of analytics and reporting capabilities. Next, mFoundry has established the largest partner network in the industry by partnering with leading financial processors, credit card associations and other financial powerhouses – resulting in an average of more than 15 new customer additions per month. This also allows channel partners to rapidly deploy mFoundry-powered mobile banking solutions among their customer base

Most importantly, the company demonstrates a willingness and ability to refine its go-to-market strategy to keep pace with the rapid pace of evolutions of the mobile ecosystem – for instance, it continuously offers support for next-generation Smartphones and emerging devices to ensure a broad coverage for its customers (the FIs). Today, mFoundry works with more than 265 banks, credit unions, and issuers in the United States and continues to rapidly increase its customer base for both mobile banking and mobile payments services.

mFoundry has several innovations to its credit. It powers the Starbucks mobile gift card payment application in the United States, which is the largest such initiative of its kind. This has given the company tremendous credibility as it is the only m-banking company that has a live mobile payments solution of this scale in the United States. Other innovations that are in trials, or are already commercially available, include rich analytics, mobile remote deposit, mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, near field communications (NFC) implementations, and others.

“The roadmap for the competition’s services in mobile banking and payments is not yet clear, and mFoundry is clearly a leader when it comes to providing innovative, high-potential, growth-oriented mobile financial services,” asserts Gandhi. “The fact that leading financial processors are willing to partner closely with mFoundry is a validation in itself, and speaks volumes about the company’s aggressive pursuit of excellence on the product, marketing and sales fronts.”

According to the company, mFoundry provides value to customers in multiple ways. It enables banks, credit unions, and issuers to start using the mobile channel with ease and get comprehensive reporting and feedback to understand and fine-tune their offerings on an ongoing basis to achieve the best results. The company also provides FIs with avenues to offer a wide range of banking and payment services to all customers. Finally, mFoundry offers multiple deployment options as well as solutions that are modular and extensible platforms to mobilize the future mobile banking and payment services.

Be it mobile payments, analytics, configurable console-based implementations, or others, mFoundry has always been known as the ‘company to watch’ in the U.S. mobile banking and mobile payments markets. Its ability to introduce successful next-generation mobile financial services before others makes the company a key enabler in this space and the worthy recipient of the 2010 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Entrepreneurial Company of the Year in mobile banking.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated Entrepreneur Spirit by devising a strong growth strategy and robustly implementing it. The recipient has shown strength in terms of innovation in products and technologies, leadership in customer value as well as market penetration and speedy response to market needs. in short, the award looks at the emerging market players in the industry and recognizes their best practices that are positioned for future growth excellence.

Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

mFoundry Provides Mobile Banking Solution for Washington Trust Bank

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mFoundry, a provider of secure mobile banking and payment solutions, has launched a fully-integrated multi-mode mobile banking solution for Washington Trust Bank, the oldest and largest privately-owned commercial bank in the Pacific Northwest. Washington Trust customers now have access to a mobile banking solution that includes text, mobile web and mobile applications.

“We are pleased to provide our customers with the greatest range of options for their mobile banking needs,” said Jim Brockett, CIO of Washington Trust Bank. “As we set our mobile strategy, our primary goal was to offer a mobile solution that served our customers regardless of the phone they have, while still providing deep functionality. Of all the options available to us, mFoundry’s solution delivered best on both fronts.”

“Washington Trust Bank is a perfect example of our ability to help banks of any size quickly develop and deploy multi-mode mobile banking solutions,” said Drew Sievers, Co-Founder and CEO of mFoundry. “With more than 250 financial institutions running our software, including three of the top five banks in the country, we have a unique level of experience helping banks and credit unions of all sizes and scale launch successful mobile banking initiatives.”

The WTB Mobile application is available on iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and many RIM BlackBerry devices, including touch-enabled versions. Using WTB Mobile, users can check balances, pay bills, make transfers, and find WTB branches or ATM locations.

Customers can also use Washington Trust Bank’s enhanced mobile Web to access their online banking via any device with a mobile web browser. The mobile web experience delivers optimized rendering if the customer is using an HTML5-based phone, such as Palm WebOS (in addition to iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, and the most recent RIM BlackBerry devices). With the text banking commands, users can inquire about account balances and transaction history from almost any phone.

WTB Mobile is available for immediate download in both Apple iTunes AppStore and Android Marketplace.

Source: mFoundry

U.S. Mobile Payment Market to Top $200 Billion by 2015, Says Research Report

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A recent report from Aite Group forecasts that U.S. mobile bill payments will reach more than $200  billion in 2015.

Aite Group interviewed more than 60 companies in the Fall of 2010 and produced a 65 page report that defines and segments the mobile payment industry, and includes an analysis of the competitive and market trends.

Each one of the multiple categories of mobile payments defined in the report will experience double-digit growth, with mobile payments accounting for  US$214 billion in gross dollar volume by 2015, up from US$16 billion in 2010–a 68% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2010 and 2015.

The report references the following companies: Allstate, Amazon, American Express, Apple, AT&T, Bango, Bank of America, Barclays, Bill2Mobile, BlackBerry, Bling Nation, BOKU, Brink’s, C-Sam, Cashedge, Cellfire, Chase, Chase Paymentech, Cimbal, ClairMail, coupons.com, Coupons Sherpa, Visa’s Cybersource, Device Fidelity, Diebold, Discover, Eagle Eye Solutions, eBay, Euronet, Facebook, First Data, FIS, Fiserv, Foursquare, Gemalto, Global Payments, Google, Gowalla, Green Dot, Groupon, Harland Financial Services, Heartland Payment Systems, Hipcricket, iLoop Mobile, Inside Contactless, Intuit, Jack Henry/iPay Technologies, Kubra, MasterCard, mFoundry, Mobile Coupons, Mocapay, MoneyGram, Monitise Group, mopay, MyWebGrocer, NCR, NetSpend, Nokia, Oberthur Technologies, Obopay, OfferIQ, Online Resources, PayPal, Plastyc, Pyxis Mobile, Research-in-Motion (RIM), Roam Data (Ingenico), Roamware, Rocketbuxx, SK C&C USA, Square, Starbucks, Sybase, T-Mobile, Tetherball, 3i Infotech, Tier Technologies, TransferTo, TSYS, Twitter, U.S. Bank, VeriFone, Verizon, Vesta, Visa, ViVOtech, Waspit, Way Systems, Western Union, Wincor Nixdorf, WirelessLoyalty, Xipwire, Yelp, and Zong.

More information: Aite Group Mobile Payment Report.

Source: Aite Group

mFoundry

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With more than 250 clients, mFoundry is a leading provider of mobile solutions for banks, credit unions, and retailers. The company’s products are based upon a market-proven platform that was designed to help clients create deeper, more valuable relationships with their customers.

Founded in 2004 by Drew Sievers and Rodney Aiglstorfer, mFoundry started with a vision of finding an alternative to the conventional approach of mobile application development. Leveraging roots in customer marketing and technology, the mFoundry team continues to evolve products to provide clients with solutions that add real value and revenue to their businesses.

Over the past 6 years, mFoundry’s customer-focused solutions have become the dominant solution for mobile banking and payments, and have been adopted by some of the largest banks, credit unions, payments processors, and retailers in the country.

mFoundry is headquartered in Larkspur, California.

More information: mFoundry

Global Mobile Payment Market to Reach US$264.8 Billion by 2015

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Mobile payment market gained momentum in the recent years owing to introduction of efficient mobile money transfer services across several markets. Further, the widespread adoption of mobile payments in majority of the markets, especially in Asia-Pacific, and participation of global institutions in NFC (near-field communication) payment trials led to the growth of the market. Given the fact that approximately four billion mobile phone users exist across the globe with numbers increasing at a faster pace, and the figure of bank accounts is approximately pegged at about 1.6 billion, mobile payment attracts huge growth potential.

Asia-Pacific represents the largest market as stated by the new market research report on Mobile Payment (Mobile Money) Market. Rest of world comprising Latin America, the Middle East and Africa represents the fastest growing market for mobile payment (mobile money) in the world. By mobile technology type, SMS Mobile Payment segment predominates the worldwide mobile payment market, while the Near Field Communications (NFC) represents the fastest growing technology type for mobile payment.

Major players profiled in the report include Ericsson, Firethorn Holdings LLC, Harex Infotech Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, mBlox Inc., mFoundry Inc., Mobipay Systems Inc., Netsize Corporate, Nokia Corporation, NTT DOCOMO Inc., Obopay Inc., Paybox Services, Sybase Inc., Verrus Mobile Technologies Inc., and ViVOtech Inc, among others.

The report titled “Mobile Payment (Mobile Money): A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides overview of market, market trends, product overview, product developments/introductions, and recent industry activity. The study analyzes market data and analytics in terms of number of users and value sales for regions including the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of World. The study also analyzes global market data in terms of value sales for mobile technology type including Near Field Communications (NFC), SMS Mobile Payment, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

Source: PR Web

Global Mobile Banking Customer Base to Reach 1.1 Billion by 2015

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Mobile banking is emerging as a key electronic channel for the global banking and financial services industry. The ubiquitous nature of mobile devices and services, and the ability of mobile banking services to reduce overall operational costs, streamline operations, and expand customer base are expected to boost prospects in the industry. Increasing adoption of mobile phones among general consumers, particularly among the younger generation in the 18-34 years age group, and rapid rise in demand for mobile payments are expected fuel demand for mobile banking services.

The industry is also expected to benefit from favorable government and regulatory specifications, which are aimed at providing banking services to unbanked customers to promote economic development.The United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific dominate the global mobile banking market, as stated by the new market research report on mobile banking. The market for mobile banking is set to achieve tremendous growth, with Asia-Pacific emerging as the predominant market in terms of customer base.

North America and Europe are characterized by high usage of mobile devices for Internet access, as a result of which mobile banking is an extension of online banking services. In Europe, mobile banking services are still in early stages, and regarded primarily as ‘convenience providers’ and ‘value additions’ rather than revenue generators. On the other hand, the Middle East and African markets are expected to benefit from the mobile banking technology’s ability to provide financial services to remote areas.Rapid growth of mobile banking services is driving banks to devise strategies to sustain presence in an intensely competitive market. Success of a bank’s mobile banking service is dependent on its ability to retain customer base and achieve cost reductions.

Key players profiled in the report include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc., , ClairMail Inc, Firethorn Holdings LLC, Fronde Anywhere Ltd, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Limited, Macalla Software Ltd, mFoundry, Monitise plc, MShift Inc., and Sybase Inc., among others.The report titled “Mobile Banking: A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, competitive scenario, product introductions/innovations, and recent industry activity. The study analyzes market data and analytics in terms of number of customers for The United States, Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of World.For more details about this comprehensive market research report, please visit – Mobile Banking Market Report

Source: PR Web