5 Minutes with… Loviit

In our 5 minutes with profiles, MEF members talk about their business, their aspirations for the future and the wider mobile industry. This week, Marcel Vaschauner, CEO & Founder of Loviit, a mobile payments solution from Buongiorno. What does Loviit do? Loviit is a new solution for mobile payment and financing covering all services around the payment chain, guaranteeing a weekly payout. With only one integration and one agreement our customers have all payment options ready to start business internationally. In addition, we offer hire purchase to our merchants’ consumers and are …

Global Mobile News Round-up – Week 25th May

Android Pay unveiled plus all the news from Google I/O, Swatch to Launch Smartwatch with payments, 5 things we got totally wrong about FinTech, OTT threat to India voice revenues and more... Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news you may have missed, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global Mobile News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.  Global News Stories Android Pay is all about tokenisation, (mostly) replaces Google Wallet arstechnica On Thursday, Google officially …

Global Mobile News Round-up

Apple music streaming service launch, Spotify & Starbucks team up and mobile ad-blocking woes - plus all the weekly mobile news from around the world... Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news you may have missed, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global Mobile News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.  Global News Stories Apple is planning a major international launch for its new music streaming service Business Insider Apple is planning an early launch in Russia for …

Global Mobile News Round-up – Week 11th May

Verizon buys AOL for $4.4bn, Apple Pay in China, mobile ad spend to reach $105bn and more... Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news you may have missed, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global Mobile News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.  Global News Stories Verizon to buy AOL for $4.4bn BBC US telecommunications giant Verizon has agreed to buy AOL in a deal worth $4.4bn (£2.8bn). Buying AOL will broaden the amount of advertising Verizon can sell and will increase …

10 things you need to know about mobile vouchers and digitizing cash

Identified as one of MEF’s “10 Key Mobile Trends for 2015”, the creation of methods to convert “cash” to “digital money” is key to enabling mobile & Internet commerce. How does an aspirational consumer in an emerging market take their real cash and buy goods with their mobile? Here, Peter Cook, CEO of MEF Member Novatti, shares the 10 things you need to know. 1) It’s happening now Looking at some current use cases: Mobile recharge - whether the consumer buys a “PIN”, otherwise known as a “Voucher”, or they pay an agent to do an e-topup, the consumer is paying with cash and receiving a …

Bluetooth Low Energy – at the intersection of retail, marketing and payments

The mobile payment ecosystem is characteristically fragmented with a host of different options that are vying for consumer attention as the technologies and services based on them progress toward maturity. NFC, Direct Operator Billing and Bluetooth Low Energy all have their strengths as transactional platforms whether that’s peer-to-peer, in-store or online and they all have a common goal: convenient, frictionless payments. Arguably, the focus on convenience hasn’t yet led to wholesale consumer adoption so stakeholders are keen to take a broader approach that focuses on making mobile …

Global Mobile News Round-up – Week 20th April

Google launches Project Fi mobile phone network and ‘Mobilegeddon’ search tweak, Alibaba wants its merchants to just use smartphones, Facebook continues to make its money from mobile... and more... Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news you may have missed, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global Mobile News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.  Global News Stories Google launches Project Fi mobile phone network BBC Google has detailed its plan to run a mobile phone …

Global Mobile News Round-up – Week 13th April

EU and Google antitrust, China leads on iOS downloads, 6% in the US plan to buy an Apple Watch and more... Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news you may have missed, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global Mobile News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.  Global News Stories EU Accuses Google Of Antitrust Violations; Starts Android Probe Bloomberg The European Union escalated its four-year-old probe into Google Inc., accusing the Internet giant of abusing its dominance of …

12 stats that show how mobile money is growing globally

Mobile Money continues to gather pace.  This year’s Christmas period saw another record breaking year in mobile transaction volumes.  At the same time the halo effect of Apple Pay has seen the launch of similar services, notably Samsung’s Samsung Pay. Here we’ve collected the original reports, research and forecasts over the last three months that illustrate just how mobile money is taking hold, bringing mobile service providers in to direct and collaborative relationships with regulators, banks, and retailers and typify how the ecosystem is evolving, cross sector, cross border from …

5 minutes with…Novatti

In our 5 minutes with profiles, MEF members talk about their business, their aspirations for the future and the wider mobile industry. This week, Peter Cook, founder and the CEO of Novatti introduces the mobile payments specialists. What does Novatti do? Novatti creates and delivers innovative payment solutions to a global base of Tier 1 and smaller service providers and start-ups.  With our multi-services payments platform, Novatti enables telecoms, banking and alternative network service providers to extend their product portfolio – taking robust, integrated new payments services to market …

Tackling the barriers to mobile payments

2014 was a big year for mobile payments, Apple made its hotly anticipated move with the launch of the NFC powered Apple Pay, stimulating consumers to reach for their phones to pay for goods at the checkout.  One recent study by Boston Retail Partners estimates that 38% of large US retailers will be accepting Apple Pay by the end of 2015.   Other mobile payments platforms are beginning to catch fire too.  Direct Carrier Billing for example is poised as a highly convenient way to make payments for goods and services in the physical world. Below, Oliver Schmitz, Global Lead KAM Online Retail …

Why Direct Operator Billing Is Back In Style

From its early beginnings as a convenient way to purchase a ringtone or game with a premium rate SMS message, paying with your mobile bill has come a long way. Today, Direct Operator Billing (DOB) (sometimes referred to as Direct Carrier Billing) is recognised globally as a highly convenient way to pay for all kinds of digital goods and services. At the same time, the plethora of mobile payment wallets which have been launched over the last year and the global consumers’ increasing appetite to pay for physical goods over their mobile presents a challenge to existing incumbents. So what does …

Waving but not paying – has Apple Pay put Weve on the ropes?

This week, mobile operator JV, Weve, announced that it was scaling back its plans to launch and support its mobile wallet just as Apple prepares to move in to the NFC enabled, wave and pay market with its iPhone 6 and Apple Pay.  With iPhones accounting for roughly one third of the UK smartphone users the move drastically reduces Weve's addressable market which the Centre for Economics and Business Research forecasts will be worth £14.2bn in 2018. Perhaps operators will focus their efforts on Android smartphones, yet Google launched its own NFC mobile wallet service in the US in 2011 in the …

Global Mobile News Round-up – Week 14th April 2014

Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.  Global News Stories   Google Play Downloads 45 Per Cent Higher Than iOS, Says App Annie  Mobile Marketing Magazine Global app downloads from the Google Play store now exceed those from the iOS App Store by over 45 per cent, according to a report from App Annie. This has been driven by the prominence of Android in emerging markets which have …