Mobile Banking International Updates - May 10

MTN Says Subscribers Advanced 3.7% to 170.6 Million in March
"Africa’s largest mobile-phone company, said subscriptions rose 3.7 percent in the first quarter as users were attracted to its data packages and mobile banking facilities. MTN had 170.6 million subscribers at the end of March, compared with 164.5 million at the end of December, the Johannesburg-based company said today. In Nigeria, the company’s biggest market, it added 1.26 million new customers while South Africa contributed 3.2 percent more users, MTN said."

RHB Now Mobile Banking app available"
Mobile Banking app is now available on iPhone, iPad, Android and other smartphones for free. Customers who download it will be able to enjoy mobile banking services such as Account Enquiry, Bill Payment, Fund Transfer, Prepaid reload, Branch/ATM locator and Assistance."

AhnLab Reports the Analysis of the Best Apps in the Android Market
"AhnLab, Inc. ( http://global.ahnlab.com ), a leading provider of integrated security solutions, today announced that its research has identified many popular Android apps are asking for excessive permissions to access to the user data. AhnLab analyzed 178 best rated android apps using AhnLab Mobile Smart Defense (AMSD), cloud-based application analysis platform which verifies the security of Android apps. AMSD scanned 178 apps in five different types of permissions including: Personal information access, service information access, location information access, service charging and device information access. In this analysis, the degree of risk was marked on a scale from 1 to 100 by each type of permission, and the apps recorded 60 and above are classified as malicious."

Tanzania: PBZ Set for Mobile Money Transfer
THE People's Bank of Zanzibar (PBZ) plans to introduce mobile money transfer (Z-Pesa by Zantel) later this year to cater for the rising demand for financial services. The PBZ's Director of Marketing and Business Development, Mr Juma Hafidh, made the remarks over the weekend in Dar es Salaam at the launching of a special local television programme 'Mwana Dar es Salaam.' 'The installation of the mobile system has been completed and what remains is finalisation of some logistics with regulatory bodies,' he said."

The Mauritius Commercial Bank Delivers the First Mobile Banking Service in Mauritius with Oracle FLEXCUBE Direct Banking
"Oracle today announced that The Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), the oldest and largest banking institution in Mauritius, and one of the leading banking institutions in the Indian Ocean and in the Sub-Saharan region, has implemented Oracle FLEXCUBE Direct Banking to provide internet and mobile banking services to customers. MCB is the first bank in Mauritius to introduce mobile banking services and 96 per cent of its registered mobile banking users are already actively using the facility."

Developing Countries Are Revolutionizing Mobile Banking
"Barclays of U.K. launched Pingit, a service that lets people send and receive money using a smartphone. But this isn't the first big innovation in mobile banking. These innovations are already happening in developing countries. Poor countries are jumping ahead of rich ones by building a 21st century infrastructure (because they have little legacy infrastructure to begin with). For example, India has leapfrogged from no land-line telephones to the latest in wireless telephony. That revolution, in turn, is causing India to leapfrog brick-and-mortar banking to wireless banking for the masses. We see similar patterns in other poor countries as well. Mobile money transfer in Africa, M-Pesa, is a case in point. Counterintuitive as it may seem, poor countries may be ahead of rich countries in mobile banking."

Canadians embracing mobile banking
"The benefits of owning a smartphone are many: Handling work issues when you’re not in the office, staying connected with friends and family, settling that late-night bet about John Travolta. But for millions of Canadians, smartphones are becoming their go-to device for paying bills and checking bank account balances."

Mobile banking in India does not need a one-size-fits-all solution
"Mobile banking is a new generation platform available to customers for conducting balance inquiries, account transactions, utility payments, and other banking activities using a mobile handset. Mobile banking services in India started with SMS banking way back in 2002. With an increasing mobile subscriber base in India, mobile banking has picked up steam in recent years."