Europe turns nose up at mobile banking
Mobile banking could be failing to capture the imagination of consumers, according to a
survey of 2,500 retail financial services customers across Europe. The research, conducted by TNS on behalf of Fujitsu Services, found 65 percent of respondents prefer to access banking services online. nly five percent of the sample said mobile banking is the channel of choice. Physically going to a branch is the second choice, at 53 percent. The findings differ from a UK-only survey which put face-to-face or voice interaction as the preferred method of accessing banks.

Mobile payments: the burning issue
Conceptually the mobile phone and the act of payment seem a natural match - their combination a good idea. But, as is the case with many of the good ideas this industry has had, material success on a grand scale remains elusive. The problems are familiar: the usecase is difficult to define, there are various technological solutions, which generally lead the demand, and the industry is reaching beyond the bounds of its natural habitat.

Back-Office Support for Busy Microfinanciers
THE microfinance industry — bankers to the poor — faces a paradox of scale, growing large in some ways but remaining small in others. There are more than 3,100 microfinance institutions worldwide, serving 113 million poor people. But even thriving microfinanciers are tiny by banking business standards. They typically make loans of $100 or so to entrepreneurs living on a dollar or two a day.
Using mobile phones as cash is put to the test in Europe
Don’t look now, but the French are in the technology vanguard again. A dozen major
companies have opened the largest trial outside of Asia for the use of cellphones as mobile money - giving consumers the ability to pay for everything from croissants and toothpaste to subway fare and wine with a wave of a handset. And they have global aspirations, hoping to prove that their systems, using the short-range radio technology called “near-field communications,” or NFC, can work securely on a mass scale.

AT&T’s Mobile Banking: A Stepping Stone to a True ‘Digital Wallet?’
Will credit cards, or even cash, ultimately become a thing of the past now that AT&T has dropped the gauntlet by embedding a mobile banking application into its most popular handsets? By partnering with Wachovia Corp., SunTrust Banks Inc., and Firethorn Holdings LLC, AT&T hopes as many as 30 million customers will ultimately use its new mobile application to view account balances and history, transfer funds, and pay bills from AT&T mobile phones. AT&T will pre-load the Firestorm software on approximately 30 of its most popular handsets.

Rural India New Target for Mobile Industry Players
Report Buyer, has added a new report showing that India’s telecommunication sector is  witnessing an explosive growth, as falling tariffs and rising incomes are bringing mobile phones within the reach of millions of new customers. “Emerging Rural Mobile Market in India” shows that mobile industry players are eyeing rural India as their new area of opportunity. The companies are encouraged by the fact that mobile users are expected to cross 230 million by 2007 end and 500 million by 2010.

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo may spend up to $8 bln on overseas investment
DCM is willing to spend between $5 billion and $8 billion to acquire minority stakes in telecommunications operators in emerging markets, a company executive said Tuesday.
“In the Asia-Pacific region, we are having many discussions with many operators,” Toshinari Kunieda, senior vice president and managing editor, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview on the sidelines of the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress.

India: ‘Smartcard’ facility for 3 million rural poor ¼br> The successful disbursement of payments under the AP Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (APREGS) and Social Security Pension Scheme (SSP) on pilot basis in Warangal and Karimnagar districts using the ‘Smartcard’ technology has prompted the Government to extend its reach to eight more districts in the coming few months.

Africa calling
IN THE barren surroundings of Kwa Phake in the north-east of South Africa, students from the town once left the families they supported to travel miles to the University of South Africa. Now they study at home, even receiving exam results on their mobile phones. Meanwhile, fishermen in Tanzania use mobiles to get weather reports and a service in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi alerts job seekers about vacancies by SMS.