All articles by Carlos Martin
Carlos Martin
Etisalat launches mobile bill payments in Afghanistan
Emirates telco Etisalat and Afghan energy supplier Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) have signed a deal to allow consumers to pay electricity bills by SMS-based mobile payments. With this partnership Etisalat, one of the four private telcos operating in the country, makes its mobile payment platform available to DABSs 300,000 costumers in Kabul The service will bring about enhanced convenience as it will greatly ease bill payments for Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkats 300,000 customers in Kabul, by enabling customers to pay their bills using their mobile phones.
Boku gets $35m injection for m-payments expansion
US-based online and mobile payments service provider Boku has received a $35m capital injection from Telefonica Digital, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures to grow its business abroad.
PayPal to demo new wallet service at SXSW
PayPal is going to showcase a new feature of its mobile wallet service during SXSW Interactive, the annual new technology festival in Austin, Texas. PayPal’s vice-president for global product and experience, Sam Shrauger, announced in the companys blog that he will be giving attendees a demo of a completely redesigned and re-architected the PayPal wallet. Shrauger says on his blog that it is an intelligent wallet that will do for digital money what internet mash-ups did for digital information.
Uganda: $1m m-money research
MTN Uganda and the Grameen Foundation will invest $1m in research aimed to develop mobile financial solutions for low-income groups. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) will be their partner in this initiative, which was sealed in Barcelona during the Mobile World Congress. MTN’s CEO Themba Khumalo said in local media that the aim of the initiative is to build up the extensive research already conducted through Grameen Foundation’s Application Laboratory (AppLab) in Uganda and to leverage MTN’s successful mobile money services.
Google used to consider virtual currency
At Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, Google chairman Eric Schmidt admitted that the company considered issuing its own bucks until they were hampered by regulatory concerns We’ve had various proposals to have our own currency we were going to call Google Bucks,” he said.
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Fiserv integrates Zashpay & Popmoney for new P2P service
Fiserv is going to integrate the P2P payment networks Zashpay and Popmoney and sell the service under the Popmoney name from this summer on The resulting network will connect 1,400 financial institutions and reach 35m consumers from both online and mobile banking, Fiserv estimates
eBay & Three: preloaded Auction app
eBay and UK mobile operator Three will team up to offer Android smartphones users a preloaded auction app. eBay reported that in 2011 online auctioneers generated with the app sales of almost $5bn For 2012 eBay expects to do $8 billion in mobile commerce retail volume.
Globe Telecom: new m-money transfer application for Apple
Globe Telecom has unveils a new m-payment app for GCash, its money transfer service at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company has announced that the iOS app is compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices and the app is going to be available this March.
Telenor targets 10% of revenues from m-commerce
Norweian mobile operator Telenor aims to achieve 10% of its revenue from Asian mobile financial services, said Telenor EVP Kristin Skogen Lund at Mobile World Congress.
Ericsson& MTN, Tandem Intel & Visa in partnership deals
African telco MTN will become the first operator to deploy the Ericsson Converged Wallet platform across Africa and the Middle East.