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Secure and convenient: rise of mobile money transactions

  • By Timothy Roberts
  • Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Mobile money has digitally transformed the world, making things like bill pay, wires, withdrawals, deposits and shopping a dynamic, fast, and convenient experience, not just here in the United States, but around the world. Millennials have benefitted the most from this technological advancement. While their parents had to write checks to pay the electric bill, go to a currency exchange to wire money to family members outside the country, and go to the bank to deposit money and withdraw funds so they could go shop, millennial shoppers can do it all from their cell phone, but how did this digital transformation help change everything?

In this piece we’ll dive into the rise of mobile money transactions, their convenience and security, important features in a mobile money platform, and discuss why mobile money transactions are so exciting from a financial inclusion and business perspective.

How is mobile money advancing transactions?

In short, mobile money is changing how we can securely send money across the globe. Wire transfers have been the norm for a long time, but mobile money unlocks a variety of new possibilities and has the potential to help include more people than ever in international financial transactions.

Mobile money is a method in which you can store and manage money digitally in an account linked to a mobile phone, not unlike a bank account. Most mobile money services facilitate the purchase of goods in stores or online, paying bills, money transfers, and even cash withdrawals at authorized agents. In order to pay a bill or send money to another person, a user simply selects the appropriate service from their phone’s mobile money menu. Point of sale for businesses operate just like standard electronic cash registers, allowing businesses owners to perform basic functions of sales and returns with a POS system when working in retail to ring up an item with a barcode scanner.

Convenience and speed are benefits hard to overlook, but the idea of storing sensitive data in the age of the internet might sound a little unsafe. Rest assured that mobile money is not just convenient, but also secure, providing financial freedom to do everything from a device you can store in your back pocket. EMV-compliant chip credit cards for instance have made charging safer than it has ever been with the old magnetic strip cards. In the world of mobile payments, platform providers that have achieved GSMA Mobile Money Certification help ensure that your transactions remain secure while still delivering the speed and convenience consumers demand.

Emerging markets

Mobile money can be both a secure and convenient way to pay bills and manage your finances — but let’s explore where it’s changing the way people in emerging markets are taking advantage of the tech.

Singapore

In Singapore, a 32 year-old native of the Philippines called John Santos uses his mobile phone like a personal assistant to translate, navigate, and now do all of his banking as well. With an app called Dash, which is supported by Telepin’s platform for Singtel, John sends money electronically back to the Philippines. It also allows him to connect his savings account to his mobile cash account with utmost ease, allowing him to manage his transfers as he sees fit, providing that financial freedom we mentioned.

John Santos is surely just one of many millennial workers to take advantage of the convenience, speed and security mobile money. With Dash, John pays his bills early, never missing a remittance or getting charged a late fee and he can send money 24/7. John Santos of Singapore and likely in numerous other millennial workers in Singapore aren’t part of the only emerging market outside the US.

Tanzania

In Tanzania, Telepin was selected to replace Tigo Tanzania’s mobile money services provider. The project was no small task and to get the 13 million accounts switched over took the Telepin team had to account for a variety of aspects including how users leverage the platform today, compliance, and seamless integration of new features. That all came with Telepin making changes and adjustments to their APIs and interface in order to best serve the banks and billers involved, along with the operations team at Tigo Tanzania.

The results? A year after with Telepin, Tigo Tanzania experienced a 30% revenue increase from mobile financial services plus their Global System for Mobile Communications user base saw an 18% increase helping. In short, the project was a success for Tigo Tanzaniua and Tanzania’s second-largest mobile services provider saw increased revenue growth as a result.

These same results are reproducible in other emerging markets across the globe if providers are willing to make the shift to more modern solutions.

How the mobile money transaction features work

There are a variety of important features required in a robust and attractive mobile money platform. Consumers today have more options than ever, and to attract a broad network of users, a mobile money transaction platform must be able to deliver value to consumers.

For example, add-on modules that enable customer loyalty programs using cumulative counters are an easy way to automate rewards. When customers reach a given amount of usage, the platform can automatically apply a pre-configured reward to the account. These rewards then enable subscribers to redeem those points for goods and services they enjoy and incentivize further use of the platform. Similarly, points based on other events such as birthdays, holidays, etc further drive engagement.

At Telepin we recognize the importance of delivering value to users and this is a big part of why we have been able to grow our network to 256 million enabled users. Key features of our own highly-scalable and secure mobile money solutions include:

  • Cash-in deposits: That includes mobile deposits and direct-deposit so you never have to take time out of your busy schedule to go to the bank before closing time again.
  • Cash-out withdrawals: Electronically pay for anything and everything using your mobile wallet, eliminating cash and a fat wallet.
  • Person-to-person money transfers: Never again stand in line at a currency exchange to send a family member money, be it international or domestic, with mobile money, sending a family money is as easy as turning on a light switch.
  • Bill payments: Never again risk forgetting a credit card payment by setting up automatic bill pay. You’d also never need to manage a checkbook again. Electronic bill pay is faster and costs nothing.
  • Person-to-merchant payments: Businesses can accept payments by debit or credit card via payment processor for the settlement of credit card or debit card transactions.
  • Online payments: Shop online for goods and services with the click of a button or the swipe of your phone. No more standing at busy checkout lines or sitting in traffic on the way to the store.
  • Business-to-business payments: As a business owner, you can easily pay other businesses for their services as easily as a shopper on Amazon.
  • Business-to-person and group-to-person bulk disbursements: Are a great way to compensate employees or freelancers.

Mobile money transactions are driving financial inclusion and business opportunities

From Singapore to Tanzania, and all the way back to the US, digital transformation and the use of mobile money transactions is advancing commerce by connecting the world like never before. Mobile money transactions are an engine for financial inclusion and from a business perspective emerging markets create a wealth of opportunity for providers.

Never before, has John Smith in New York been able to send money to John Santos in Singapore with the flick of the wrist, and a second in time. While people stood in lines at the bank 20 years ago to conduct wires, they can now send money halfway across the globe in seconds. Whether to pay for goods and services or help a loved one in need, this is a huge paradigm shift in the market.

Mobile money transactions are capable of connecting literally everyone with a mobile device in their back pocket, maximizing transaction times and vicariously, workflows in every sector of the mobile money industry. This in turn is taking the world’s economies to a new technological stratosphere. What’s even more exciting is the technology is ever evolving and providers are constantly launching new features in an ever inclusive and competitive marketplace.

At Telepin, we take great pride in our ability to drive innovation and inclusion in the space and look forward to continuing to lead the way in this exciting and rapidly expanding market. If you would like to learn more about mobile money transactions and all of its benefits, the team here at Telepin would love to hear from you.