US mobile money outfit Obopay has released a white-label version of its system which is designed to fast-track bank entry into the emerging m-payments market.
Obopay says the service combines complete brand control and a full range of mobile transactions and applications with simple low-cost integration and deployment. Mobile Money for Banks includes the ability to send and transfer money, makes payment card acceptance available to everyone and can be implemented in 30 days or less, says the vendor.
Mobile payments are among the top areas in which banks plan to invest in 2010 according to Ovum, and that they will be "mainstream" and a top ten mobile application by 2012 according to Gartner.
Banks are facing increasing pressure to break into the market as competition from wireless carriers and handset manufacturers intensifies. Obopay says Mobile Money for Banks allows financial services firms to piggy-back onto a transaction network which the company has invested $140 million in building over the past five years.
"Any bank that isn't looking at how to enter the mobile money market as quickly as possible is risking the loss of business to competitors, the carriers, or PayPal", says Bob Hedges, managing partner of Mercatus, "Given the considerable level of consumer interest, what banks need is a solution that is easy to implement, inexpensive and fast to deploy. We should anticipate a wave of bank deployments over the next six months."
The Obopay package offers a number of applications, including mobile payments for products or services, person-to-person payments and family transfers. Payments can be transferred direct to bank accounts, debit cards of pre-paid cards. Recipients don't have to be signed up for the service to receive the money and Obopay offers a number of additional tools including payment buttons for Websites, payment links for emails or email invoices, and social networking widgets.
Banks that sign up can choose the level of service they want to offer as well as the fees that they will charge. Obopay will collect fees on behalf of the bank and take a percentage of receipts in return.