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Cellphones will dominate e-payments

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist
Johannesburg, 09 Oct 2008

Analysts at Juniper Research expect the mobile payment (m-payment) market to gain significant traction over the next two to three years.

By 2013, they expect more than 100 million mobile phone users worldwide to use their handsets to make international m-payments.

Africa is expected to be among the top three regions in the world that will contribute more than $5 billion to the emerging sector. The industry will include mobile money transfer service providers and vendors, for both national services between mobile users in a single country and internationally.

"The vast increase in migrant workers globally has fuelled the number of remittances being sent home to friends and families regularly. The mobile phone will become a vital enabler in developing countries because often many more people have phones than have bank accounts," says Juniper analyst Howard Wilcox.

Visa goes smart

Visa Sub-Saharan Africa GM Rob Clark says Africa's GPRS networks are sufficient to support the mass roll-out of debit card facilities and other smart payment solutions.

Clark notes that Visa observed the large number of GPRS terminals being set up in Africa, and saw this as a sign of progress.

“The proliferation of GPRS terminals in areas that previously didn't have them, means those areas that did not have a satisfactory telecommunications infrastructure are finally being put in the loop.”

Teaming up with Nokia

Earlier this year, Visa announced Nokia would start selling the 6212 phone, which users could wave at an electronic reader to make payments and use for remote payments and money transfers.

Visa said it was still developing an application to sync with the Nokia phone and allow in-store "contactless" payments by cellphone.

The Visa applications will allow consumers with a relationship with a bank affiliated with Visa to use their account to pay for goods and services; initiate mobile money transfers to other individuals with Visa accounts; and receive near real-time notifications of activity on their Visa account.

"Mobile payments and services are one of the most vibrant areas of innovation at Visa, as we seek to accelerate the migration from paper forms of payment to digital money," said Tim Attinger, head of global product innovation at Visa.

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