Motorola has introduced its M-Wallet application globally, in a bid to make mobile transactions and banking easier for mobile phone users.
M-Wallet offers a "mobile interface with the financial world" and is intended to eliminate the need for carrying cash or cards. The application enables banking transactions such as funds transfer, bill payments and person-to-person account transactions, and will also allow for proximity payments.
Merchants will be able to issue "virtual loyalty or gift cards" directly to their customer`s mobile phone. These cards can be redeemed via a mobile phone or can allow customers to conduct point-of-sale transactions, collect loyalty points and obtain store receipts at retail merchants.
"Mobile phones are no longer just about conducting conversations, they are now emerging as a centre of people`s lives for every day transactions," says Sri Kannankote, Motorola`s corporate VP of network services and applications management.
Motorola says M-Wallet is "network and device agnostic and works with GSM, CDMA, or iDEN technologies, and is compatible with Symbian, PocketPC, Palm, J2ME, Brew and SimTk".
The solution consists of two components: M-Wallet is the application that consumers and merchants download from the Internet, while the Wallet Service Centre allows the operator to manage administration, registration, issuance of credit and debit cards, coupons, archiving, customer profiles and maintenance.
Available locally
Nicole Simunic, spokesperson for Motorola EMEA customer marketing, networks division, says most of the functions of the application are now available locally, with the exception of proximity payments. These will be available in six to nine months once the near field communications chips required have been embedded into phones locally.
Simunic says Motorola expects to see strong uptake of m-commerce in SA. "The timing is right for m-commerce, as many consumers have become used to Internet banking and Internet purchasing. We are taking this one step further by allowing the same functionality that you can achieve via your ATM (excluding deposit/withdrawal of cash) and Internet banking."
She says local retailers can participate by offering coupons to mobile subscribers or giving mobile subscribers access to wireless point of sale purchases. However, she notes that mobile subscribers must opt-in to receive the coupons.
"We anticipate that merchants will be asked by their financial institutions if they would like to sign up to offer m-commerce," she says. "For example, if Visa or MasterCard are their preferred vendors, we would expect these institutions to offer them this service. Or, the mobile operators can approach merchants directly.
"We will offer this solution to operators, who will then need to bring to market this value-added service to subscribers."
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