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Better known for their mobile phones, Finnish telecoms giant Nokia is branching out – into the world of financial services.
In March this year, Nokia sank $70million into mobile payment specialist Obopay and Nokia will now be working alongside the company to develop services which will enable consumers to send and receive money via mobile phone as well as pay merchants for goods and services and pay bills.
The service will be called Nokia Money and is believed to be targeting emerging markets where banking services may not be readily available.
In a news item on telecoms.com, Mary McDowell, Nokia’s chief development officer is quoted as saing: “We believe mobile financial services offer a market opportunity with long term growth potential … In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage, suggesting that many mobile phone users have very limited or no access to basic financial services. Global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services.”
With mobile phones outnumbering bank accounts by almost 3-to-1 worldwide, there is a potential market for the provision and use of basic financial services via telecoms, and Nokia are also looking to create a network of approved Nokia Money agents where users of the service can deposit and withdraw cash from their accounts.
Nokia are expected to debut the service at next week’s Nokia World with deployment of the service scheduled to take place in 2013.
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August 26, 2023
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