Saturday, June 14, 2008

Could Southern Europe jump Internet Banking for Mobile Banking?

Recent work sees me look at at the levers needed for Mobile Banking in Western Europe. Looking at what is available to date and outside the UK it seems that in Italy has seen innovation by the Post Office who are an MVNO. PosteMobile now offer bill payment over mobile phones. Customers with a PosteMobile prepaid card or BancoPosta bank account san pay bills. On a technical level the service sends an email and SMS to confirm successful payment. It costs €o.15.

The Post Office Bank in Switzerland plan to launch mobile payment services with a large marketing campaign targeting young people attending music festivals over the summer.

Now All I need to understand is the Post Office in Southern Europe still the main service for Bill Payment as it once was in the UK before Thatcher & Co put it to the sword. Am sure that Southern Europe is much more a cash based economy than Northern Countries and so Bill Payment forms a bigger part than the UK ,where a significant number use direct debit.


1 comment:

www.morel.li said...

Ciao,
I confirm south behaviour abt payment.
There is a huge space in italy for developing e-payment.
We all use a lot of cash.
Credit card are spread but NOT used.
Mobile could be a good backdoor for convince normal people to use electronic and not paper.
alex