Spent lunch with the folks from Monitise Group. Their model is very interesting. While it does not do them justice, you can think of it as a mobile ATM. Their business model integrates into an ATM switch, and allows them to offer while lable mobile banking to Banks, without any technology investment from the Bank.
The Bank gets the benefit of mobile banking for their customers without the hurdle of building another channel.
A key principle of the Monitise proposition is to facilitate a non-disruptive business model – we call it the ‘ecosystem’ – which brings together financial institutions, mobile carriers, payments networks and billers into one mutually beneficial environment. This offers a low-risk, highly scalable approach to mobile banking, leveraging the trusted infrastructure of the ATM switch to create a seamless link between consumers’ mobile handsets and their bank accounts
One of the aspects that is interesting to me, and no-one has done yet, is to consider all the aspects of the Banks’ service that is visible at the ATM including targetted advertising. For example if the Bank is offerring an overdraft service to a particular client, that offer could appear at the right place on their phone.
Their business model is attractive to Banks’ and in fact might even make the Bank money.
The ability to generate revenue from merchant services, such as pre-pay account top-ups
Lastly on security, this has been a prime focus, to ensure all aspects are covered.
We have also forged a unique relationship with mobile carriers, which enable them to verify that a request has been initiated by one of their customers. Finally Monitise employs bank grade and world class encryption mechanisms to ensure the safe transmission of information from a customer, across their mobile service provider to their bank and vice-a-versa.
Worth the look, and curious about any views out there given the mixed messages in North America certainly on mobile.
