Mobile Money Africa

Interview with Manam Infotech CEO, Mr. Meher Baba, on how “MobeeBank” can achieve the “Operator Independent – Channel Independent – Device Independent”.

How did this concept came into your mind?

We are working with the banks from the time they started using SMS as a mode of serving customers. During this we have seen various issues such as short code number portability, regulatory limitations on SMS, banks inconvenience in having multiple solutions to meet growing channel requirements etc. This is a gap where banks need a better service. Since we understand the banks and financial institutions perceptions we come out with such a concept and eventually product too.

What are the benefits of “Operator independent – Channel independent – Device independent” concept to banks and financial institutes?

The benefits are numerous. For e.g. we have seen most of the banks will either go with SMS banking or USSD banking at the beginning. With in a short span (year or so) they realize that because of competition they need to come up with some GPRS based or mobile internet based banking to allow more transaction benefits to customers. Which means banks again need to go through the process again? This is a huge effort from banks interms of time and cost. We can overcome this issue with channel independent solution
In most of the cases bank customers are diversified interms of their telco service provider and handsets. So having a connectivity agreement with one partner does not mean banks can serve the entire customer base. This issue is more relevance for small banks who would like to use USSD or SMS channels. Hence a bank needs to have an “operator independent” & “Device independent” solution to ensure the uniformity of the service offering to its customers.
Having such solution help banks to enable real time transactions like bill payments, remittances, loan payments, fund transfers, pinless topups. So that non secure transactions can go on sms or USSD and payment transactions can go on secure channels like GPRS & WAP. This will help banks not only overcome the regulatory issues but also to use mobile banking as a revenue generating tool.

How is the acceptance of clients so far?

Well. Most of the banks are now considering this as a revenue generating channel rather than a simply information disseminating channel. Our recent acquisition is a Kenya bank with East Africa presence. Apart from this we have clients in Bahrain, Oman, India, Kenya and Sudan. We are in the process of signing up with few customers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

You mentioned about bill payments and presentments in your product. Does this mean bank can use this as an alternative to POS terminals?

Certainly yes. When we compare mobiles with POS terminals, banks end up losing more revenues towards POS management and service availability. Hence inclusion of such services in mobile banking will be attractive option.
End of the day the concept works similar to POS and all the commission management, Bill settlements can be made online without any disturbance.

Do MobeeBank has provision for Mobile Payments & Remittance

As mentioned earlier in Bill Payment. Using MobeeBank one can pay their Mobile bills, recharge mobile, buy movie tickets, Flight tickets and bus tickets, apart from paying utility bills and doing various other transactions.

How African banks can benefit from your product to reach the unbanked population?

Yes, since we work closely with banks and financial institutes, we try to ensure that our product is on par with the industry or market requirements. One such new thing in our product is using mobiles to provide “Branch Less Banking”.
Especially in Africa the rural banking is very much limited. So we see branch less banking is a way ahead for this. This not only enables the banking access to rural unbanked but also creates economic opportunities for the young and energetic.

You are mentioning about “Branch Less Banking”. Does this mean its agents based and how the regulations are going to be addressed?

Yes, agents are vital part of branch less banking. Whenever any banks goes for branch less banking, the bank’s image and reputation are in agent’s hand. So its important banks take care of operational risks and liquidity risks associated with this model. I believe regulatory rules are helpful in meeting these requirements.
Since we work closely with central banks as well in understanding the frame work and regulatory issues, we have well established processes defined in the product. With which we can overcome such obligations.
In simple words personally you may be interested in doing a favor but system will not allow you to do that as it simply doesn’t meet the criteria.

Don’t you see any competition from Telcos in your model and how is their cooperation.

We don’t consider telcos as competitors rather we consider them as partners in the eco system. I understand every business needs to run in its regulatory hemisphere. Telcos can’t become a bank even though they have a very good mobile banking product, on the other hand banks can’t be a telco as they have enough cash. It needs its own time to get there. It requires a balanced approach as long as both are getting benefited.

Do you have any presence in Africa?

Yes. We have our regional office for Middle East and Africa in Bahrain and our support centre is in Kenya to cater to our large African based customers. We are also in process of starting operations in West Africa and Europe.

Do Manam Infotech have other product offers

Yes. We have few more products for Banks and Financial Institutes like Customer Acquisition System, Credit Card Processing System and Phone Banking. It’s our long term goal to serve as a preferred partner for banks on delivery channels.

Meher Baba
CEO – Manam Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

Visit site at http://manamtech.com/