Mobile Banking Coming To Indian Handsets, Thanks To Nokia, Bharti Airtel, Vodaphone And Banks.

Image courtesy of watblog

Mobile Banking, India, Nokia, Bharti Airtell, Vodaphone  http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
With mobile phones reaching over 650 million people in India, banks and mobile service providers are hard at work hoping to provide financial services on the mobile device. The country is still growing in financial and banking like the rest of the economy and banks reach much much less that what mobile service providers do.
Indian mobile banking was taken much further, recently by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone when both announced different ventures related to mobile banking.. Bharti Airtel Announced a partnership with the State Bank of India while Vodafone agreed to become a Business Correspondent for ICICI Bank.

Airtel and SBI will invest about Rs one billion to set up the joint venture which will engage Airtel's retailers as Customer Service Points (CSP) all over India in a phased manner.Once deployed existing and new Airtel mobile customers will be able to visit these CSPs and open new SBI bank accounts and utilize banking products and services available at these CSPs. In Addition,existing SBI customers will be able to reach their accounts via these CSPs.
The ICICI Bank and Vodafone Essar Ltd venture will offer a range of financial products similar to the above, such as savings accounts, pre-paid instruments and credit products through a mobile phone platform.Vodafone is hoping to replicate its success in Kenya and other countries where it has 20 million customers for financial services.

Nokia was among the first to start mobile payment services with a pilot projects in Pune, Chandigarh and Nasik in partnership with Yes Bank. Those pilots are now ready to go commercial.

“Mobile payments will be the next step for delivering financial services to hundreds of millions of “underbanked” people or those who are under-served currently, both urban and rural customers, especially in emerging economies. Our vision is to make mobile money part of our phones just like we have made camera an integral part of the handset, ... Technology is not an issue but getting the ecosystem in place is the important part. We have partnered with utility companies, telecom firms, gas companies to enable mobile payment,” says Gerhard Romen, Director, Mobile Financial Services, Nokia

But the new comers are not planing to hand over the crown yet,

“Since more than 90 per cent of the mobile subscriber base is pre-paid, consumers are used to paying upfront at a mobile retail shop. The comfort factor is very important, especially when we are dealing with money,” says Samaresh Parida, Director (Strategy), Vodafone Essar. Vodafone.

“India thus provides an ideal case for leveraging low-cost mobile services to provide financial inclusion to the un-banked population in the country. SBI is interested in inclusion and Airtel is a microcosm of India and increasingly rural, so both will leverage the expertise of the parent organisations to provide low-cost, secure, easy-to-use banking services,” says Sriram Jagannathan, CEO, mCommerce, Bharti Airtel. 

Perhaps, there is a lesson to learn for our service providers and banks are looking to provide mobile payments, with merchants like Starbucks taking their own initiatives to provide a way to pay for cup of coffee with mobile phones.

Hindubusinessline Via IP Carrier (Image from watblog)

China Leads Global Mobile Operator Ranks!

China Leads Global Mobile Operator Ranks http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
In what may look like a forerunner to what to expect int he future, in other industries as well, Chinese Mobile Operators have secured the top ranks.
China Mobile continues to be ranked as the world's #1 operator, reporting the highest mobile subscriber connections count (556.3 million) and mobile revenue (US$17.7 billion).

Vodafone remained in the number two position (331.4 million) connections and revenue of (14.561 Billion).
The third was secured by America Movil by jumping two places in ranking to overtake Telefonica for third place on the back of strong growth in its Latin American markets with (211.3 million) connections and (6.9 billion) revenue.

The others were not so bad either,
4     Telefonica Group  155 million connections and 8.8 Billion revenue
5     Deutsche Telekom Group     108.2 million connections and 10.4 billion in revenue
5(6)     Verizon Wireless     99.7 million connections and 14 billion in revenue
7     AT&T     91.0 million connections and 13.1 billion in revenue thanks to iPhone and Apple.
8     China Unicom     157 million connections 3 billion in the pocket
9     MTN Group got      101.6 million connections with 3.7 billion of revenue
10     France Telecom Group     78.4 million connections and 6.8billion in revenue.
You can find more information on this ranking and the how the other ten mobile operators, like NTT Docomo, Bharti Airtel and Sprint did at Wireless Intelligence

Google (Unity Consortium) TransPacific Cable In Service

Google (Unity Consortium) TransPacific Cable snapvoip.blogspot.com
Unity, a consortium of six international companies, together with its suppliers NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications, announced that the Trans-Pacific Unity submarine cable system has successfully completed comprehensive end-to-end testing, has been formally handed over to Unity and is now in service.

“Following months of testing to ensure that the cable system meets the rigorous transmission standards specified, the Unity cable system is now ready to deliver the much anticipated capacity to meet the Trans-Pacific connectivity needs of members of the consortium,” said Chris Wilson, Chairman of the Unity Executive Committee.

The Transpacific cable, 9620KM long, being laid to increase the bandwidth between USA and ASIA is nearing the end. The unity consortium, (Google, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, Pacnet, and SingTel) cable is ready to boost the TransPacific bandwidth to possibly by 4.8 to 7.68Tbps (terabits per second). The cable consists of 5 fiber pairs, each with a capacity of 960 Gbps, and will be expandable to 8 fiber pairs. This will give the cable a total capability of 7.68 Tbps.
Google is entitled to 20 percent of that bandwidth for its needs, for it's investment in the project. The Googles need has arisen from its Malaysian Server farm and the market offerings being too expensive.

"The need for information is a global requirement. As the economies of Asian countries continue to grow, data traffic and the use of the Internet expands. Google is a global company and is committed to providing the best quality of user experience regardless of geography," said Google in a conversation.

One end of the cable, has landed in Japan.With this landing completes the venture that has been going on for the past two months. Two ships have been laying out the cable from a midpoint in the Pacific to Chikura, Japan and US West Coast in Los Angele. The cable was joined in the middle of the Pacific on Oct. 30. Once the last splice is completed in Japanese end, testing can begin.
Wikipedia