Research Project: Mobile Commerce

A mobile way to send money
The Times (UK): Mobile phones are the latest weapon against poverty as companies find new ways for people without bank accounts to access their money. [more] (13th Nov. 2006)

Mobile Banking: A Bank within your fingertips
blogspot.com (Technical Writing): Mobile banking (M-Banking) is one of the mobile financial services that are offered as a part of mobile commerce. Mobile Banking refers to "provision and availment of banking and financial services with the help of mobile telecommunication devices. The scope of offered services may include facilities to conduct bank and stock market transactions, to administer accounts and to access customized information.” [more] (13th Nov. 2006)

Boom in Mobile Phones offers new banking opportunities for the poor: South Africa Study
UN Foundation (Washington D.C.): The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation), and The Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF) today released the first public findings on how low-income individuals in South Africa use mobile phone banking (m-banking). The findings show that m-banking can be up to a third cheaper for customers than the current banking alternatives, and users value the service for its security and easy use. However, this study shows more needs to be done to address negative perceptions about the cost and effectiveness of mobile phones and m-banking. [more] (8th Nov. 2006)

Mobiles, protests and pundits
The Economist (UK): Mobile phones are changing politics faster than academics can follow: [...] The use of mobiles as a tool of “empowerment”, even in the poorest and worst-governed parts of the world, is not always so grisly. The cruder kinds of electoral fraud, relying on poor communications between the capital and the boondocks, are now much harder. Even with minimal resources, monitors can count the voters and conduct exit polls—and then phone their findings to a radio station before the authorities stuff the ballot boxes. Such methods have helped make elections a bit cleaner in places like Ghana and Kenya. Meanwhile, in Europe's darkest corner, Belarus, text messages call youngsters to surreal acts of resistance, such as (to take a recent example) gathering to eat ice cream. [more] (26th Oct. 2006)

Phoney finance: Mobile telephony and banking
The Economist (UK): LIFE is now easier for Andile Mbatha, who owns a hair salon in Soweto. Gone are his days of trekking to his bank, which could take two hours by minibus, to send money to relatives. Nor does he keep piles of cash in his salon any more. Last year, he opened a bank account with Wizzit, an innovative provider of financial services. He now sends money to his sister in Cape Town whenever he wants, from wherever he wants, using a simple menu on his mobile phone. Half his customers no longer pay cash for their haircuts. They use their phones to move money from their accounts to his, in a few seconds. “This has taken out a lot of stress,” says Mr Mbatha. [more] (26th Oct. 2006)

Mobile Banking and its regenration
ultraviolet.co.uk (UK): Mobile banking and its regeneration: mobile banking; m-banking initiatives to date have failed to impress customers due to unreliable service and poor applications, leading many banks to cease offering banking through mobile phones. However, m-banking appears to be making acomeback as Asia and Africa are experiencing a boom in this market. [more] (Oct. 2006)

Malaysia's Maybank launches mobile banking service
Energy Business Review Online (UK): Customers of Maybank and Celcom will now enjoy an additional channel, M2U Mobile Service, on which to perform their banking transactions while on the move, anytime and anywhere, the Malaysian bank has announced. [more] (22nd June 2006)

Now, you can bank on your mobile, literally
Daily New & Analysis (India): Imagine opening a bank account through your mobile phone. Or making purchases using your cellphone as a debit card. [...] According to industry experts, the new technology will change the face of the Indian banking industry, and in the next few years, mobile phones will provide one-stop solutions for everything. [more] (9th Feb. 2006)

Use your cell for cash withdrawals, deposits
The Financial Express (India): It may soon be possible to deposit and withdraw cash using nothing more than just your mobile phone. Mobile phone operators and banks are coming together under Institute for Development & Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) initiative to make banking services more accessible, especially in remote areas such as the North East (India). [more] (8th Feb. 2006)

Want to Cope? Go E-Banking
Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe): [...] This makes mobile banking the future of banking because the cell phone is already defining a new lifestyle. [more] (8th Feb. 2006)

Mobile Banking More Than Doubles (a must read!!)
The Korea Times (South Korea): he number of daily banking transactions conducted through mobile phones more than doubled in 2005 from a year earlier on a rise in the number of handheld devices exclusively for mobile banking, the nation’s central bank said Wednesday. The number of so-called mobile banking transactions rose to 287,000 on a daily average, up 104.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea. [more] (1st Feb. 2006) [PDF]

Korea Leads World in Mobile Banking (a must read!!)
The Korea Times (South Korea): [...] Mobile banking is continuing to gain popularity in Korea and the rest of Asia in line with the exploding digital convergence trend. According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), Internet banking including trading through mobile handsets overtook bank teller transactions last September. Financial deals with mobile gadgets averaged roughly 306,000 cases in the third quarter of last year, up 18.8 percent from the previous quarter. [more] (30th Jan. 2006) [PDF]

Online, Mobile Payment growing in China
The Mobile Technology Magazine: Online and mobile payment systems are growing in China, one of the world's fastest-growing economies. People in the world's most populous country are finding it increasingly easy to pay their bills and otherwise participate in e-commerce transactions. [more] (20 Jan. 2006)

Is Your Phone the Next ATM?
Time Magazine (USA): Customers of ATMs long ago decided they could do without a teller. Now Steven Atkinson has a bolder idea: they can also do without the cash. His company mobileATM has developed secure software that allows cell-phone owners in Britain to check their bank balances using their handsets. That may sound trivial, but 37 banks in Britain, including First Direct (the roughly $12 billion phone and PC division of giant HSBC) and RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), have approved it. [more] (12th Feb. 2005)

Are you banking more on your mobile
Times of India (India) : Imagine being stuck in a traffic jam, unable to reach your bank and get details of the last three transactions. Actually, you needn't worry. You can now 'bank' on your mobile. Send an SMS to your bank's customer service number and within a few seconds get the details. All you need is a mobile phone and a PIN from your bank. But there's more to mobile banking than making a query. You can go much beyond that."Shop on your mobiles and pay through your bank account from it, says Jyotsna Sekhri of customer services, ABN Amro. [more] (6th Feb. 2005)

Will Mobile get moving?
The Banker (UK): Although mobile banking services might appear to hold significant promise as an e-payment method, their development has so far failed to live up to expectations. [more] (4th Nov. 2004)