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DonRiver Mobile Financial and Communications Blogs

Positive Trends for Mobile Payments


Kent McNeil  October 19, 2009

The debate appears to be over about consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payments.  The Mobile Banker from the American Banker published an article about Mobile Payment Systems also known as Mobile Payment Solutions or simply as Mobile payments. The article stresses the importance mobile payments, contactless payments, Near Field Communication (NFC) and related mobile services will play in the coming years.   According to the article as much as 20% of all credit/debt transactions could be mobile or an alternative by the year 2012. What is interesting is who is leading the change and how the change is being executed in the marketplace. ...

Mobile Marketing Case Study – TEDxSMU iPhone Application


Anant Tailor  October 16, 2009

In my Mobile Marketing work at DonRiver Inc, I recently completed a project that involved the development of an iPhone application for a local TEDx conference – TEDxSMU.  The conference took place on October 10, 2009 at SMU University in Dallas Texas (www.TEDxSMU) and was a huge success.   Our TEDxSMU iPhone application provides users with the ability to view Tweets, Photos (from Flickr), and Videos (from YouTube) that are tagged with the keyword of ‘TEDxSMU’.  It therefore provides a means for users to see what others are saying about the conference as well as view photos and videos that are from ...

M-PESA launches cross border mobile money transfers from the UK to Kenya with Western Union, Provident, and KenTV


Brent Ho-Young  October 14, 2009

Hello Mobile-Financial Folks, Have you heard the news yet?  Safaricom’s M-PESA is going international.   M-PESA, with close to 8 million subscribers, will soon allow customers across the UK to send money directly to the mobile wallets of M-PESA subscribers in Kenya.   The service is being launched after a successful pilot that occurred at select Western Union, Provident Capital Transfers, and KenTV outlets in the UK during the past 3 months.   This is a significant development for the mobile financial services industry, as it represents the evolution of mobile money transfers, from domestic services to cross border mobile driven solutions.   If Safaricom’s ...

Mobile Banking - Ranking the Vendors


Kent McNeil  October 13, 2009

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog about Mobile Banking and the fact that Mobile Banking initiatives should have their own strategy.  After receiving numerous amounts of feedback about the blog I have decided to share the actual research.  16 separate vendor products were researched and rated.   Outlined below are the areas researched for each of the vendor solutions. 1)   Functionality 2)   Ease of Activation 3)   Security 4)   Partnerships 5)   Geographic Presence 6)   Implementation Experience 7)   Financial Institution Relationships 8)   MNO Relationships 9)   Financial Stability of the company 10)  Complimentary Product offerings 11)  Primary Focus Area I have removed the ratings as you will need to decide given your organizations objectives, which solution will be the best fit within your organization ...

Mobile Applications as a Marketing Tool


Anant Tailor  October 8, 2009

Beyond mobile web advertisements and in-application advertising, how can brand owners engage customers through the mobile channel?  Many brands have opted to build mobile phone applications as a means for marketing their products. Various brand applications that I have played around in the past week include: 1) Zippo - a virtual lighter on the phone screen2) BMW Z4– an application that allows users to customize a BMW Z4 and then test drive it on the screen, while at the same time creating artwork that can be saved to the phone3) Lipton Brisk Artwist – an application allows users to discover their inner ...

Mobile P2P - Youth will open networks


Kent McNeil  October 6, 2009

In a recent article about mobile peer-to-peer payments the American Banker states mobile P2P “could be the elusive key to reaching Gen Y” consumers.   I agree that Gen Y consumers will embrace mobile P2P and will almost certainly embrace it faster than any other demographic but I personally do not believe it will end with them.    The article discusses the challenges mobile P2P faces, mainly the fact that each network is essentially a closed loop system.   For example, if Citi Bank rolls out mobile peer-to-peer payments for its users only other Citi customers can use it thus limiting its ...

Starbucks Goes Mobile - Mobile Payments


Kent McNeil  September 30, 2009

Starbuck’s customers will no longer have to keep track of their prepaid Starbucks card as the coffee giant embraces mobile payments. Starbucks is introducing mobile payments with the help of mFoundry and the iPhone.  Starbucks customers can now use their mobile phones to purchase coffee at participating stores as the coffee chain conducts a mobile payment trial.   Starbucks joins the growing list of retailer’s rolling-out mobile payments solutions.  I recently downloaded the application from the App Store to test it out.   It is a simple and straightforward App as you would assume and has a useful ‘Find Store’ feature to help locate the nearest participating store front. The App ...

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MintChip Awards Ceremony Tickets Available!
Brent Ho-Young  10.22.2012
For those interested in the Royal Canadian Mint's MintChip Developer Challenge Awards Ceremony, please see below for information about tickets to the ceremony occurring this week in Toronto, Ontario.   From the MintChip Challenge:   We're releasing a limited number of tickets to the MintChip Developer Challenge Awards Ceremony. Join us for drinks, hors d'oeuvres, ...