Putting a bank in your mobile phone

Mobiquity, a mobile phone application, promises to bring an array of financial services to users' fingertips.

Developed by mobile services provider Comviva Technologies Ltd, the product integrates a telecom operator's network with various payment models. It has three key features--mobile banking (mBanking), mobile payment (mPayment) and mobile money (mMoney).

MBanking allows subscribers to access bank accounts, make payments and request cheque books, among other things. Through mPayment, subscribers can access the Vodafone M-shop to buy airline and movie tickets, send bouquets and gifts and so on.

MMoney can allow subscribers to transfer money into a "mobile account" and use the money to make payments wherever they go. But due to the constraints of India's regulatory framework, no telecom operator has agreed to offer this Mobiquity service.

"The whole idea behind introducing Mobiquity is to make the mobile phone a convenient, cash-free and card-free payment and transaction medium able to deliver a range of transfer, remittance and payment applications," said Manoranjan Mohapatra, chief executive of Comviva.

The company has introduced the mMoney service in parts of South Asia and Africa. It is hopeful that regulatory change will soon allow it to happen in India as well, and is in talks with operators.

"We expect that within six-nine months, most operators will launch their services in India in accordance with the guidelines." said Mohapatra.

India has nearly 618 million mobile phone subscribers. But some 395 million adults--or just over half the country's adult population--do not use any formal or semi-formal financial service, according to a recent study by the consultancy McKinsey and Co. Mohapatra expects Mobiquity, which is is easy to use, even for the uneducated, to change this.

"The features with regard to security and the flexibility in the system, which allow different regulators and operators to work with ease, will surely help in the adoption of the product in the long run," he said.

Mobiquity won the Mobile Messaging Congress Award 2010 in mobile financial services category in London. It also won Golden Peacock awards for innovation--for mBanking in 2007 and for another feature called hub solutions in 2009.
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