The Mobile Money Canada event that was held earlier this week in Toronto went without a hitch.  I was lucky enough to be helping with general event preparations as well as contributing in panel discussions. 

The event covered a variety of topics related to banking and financial services through speaker presentations and panel discussions.  The panel that I participated in focused on debating various aspects of a mobile banking solution that should be considered when implementing a mobile money initiative.  The intent is to share industry learning’s and specific pitfalls that may inhibit a successful mobile financial services initiative.  I felt we had good industry representation for the discussion.  Panelists included mobile banking platform vendors M-Com and Monitise, service providers such as Western Union Global Remittances and Systems Integrators such as DonRiver Inc.

It would have been nice to have financial institution and network operator representation to share lessons learned and their perspectives.  However, given that the Canadian Mobile Money industry is still in it’s infancy, it was difficult to secure speakers of those representations.

In summary, the following is an excerpt of the panel discussion that I was involved with:

Question:

What are some of the key mobile platform features or solution vendor traits that should be considered?

Responses:

·               Ensure that your partner vendor has the experience to help guide you through the implementation process.  Experience with the various business operating models, dealing with new customer service channels, and has multiple successful implementations that can be referenced.

·               The ability to leverage existing core banking services.  Many banks today have banking services and products that exist on legacy infrastructure that may not be easily accessible by new communication channels so we have to take into consideration the cost of IT modernization for back office integration.

·               Validate that the vendor you choose can implement a solution that aligns to your organization’s core strengths.  Introducing services that your organization cannot manage or support will impact customer satisfaction and reverse the value of a mobile offering.

Question:

What are the different communications protocols currently being used for mobile money applications?  How does this impact user experience and is consistent user experience mandatory?  Do we aim for the lowest common denominator in terms of handset capability?

Responses:

·               The various communication protocols that are currently in use for mobile money applications are SMS based solutions, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), WAP and HTTP/S data services.

·               SMS based applications are ubiquitous and can be leveraged in CDMA and GSM networks globally.

·               USSD is only available through the GSM network.

·               WAP and HTTP/S require a data plan.

·               Rich customer interface can be easily implemented using HTTP/S communication protocols due to the availability of graphics and dynamic content whereas SMS and USSD applications are typically text and menu driven types of applications.

·               It is not necessary to implement a consistent look and feel across all target market offerings.  For instance, SMS can be leveraged for informational services such as alerts and notifications whereas rich java applications can be developed for banking services such as bill payment, and money transfer functions.

Question:

How many levels of security aspects should be considered for mobile money? I.e. Handset hardware, communication protocol, transaction clearing, access to facilities, etc.?  How can we reduce the perceived notion that the mobile device is insecure?

Response:

·               Similar to banking security best practices, all levels of security should examined and implemented for mobile money applications.  One thing to note is that mobile money services can be segregated into two groups, informational and transactional.  Informational services can be implemented with lower security levels due to its non-monetary nature, thus, a reduced risk factor.  Transactional services should consider higher levels of security to ensure the customer is protected from phising attacks and identity theft.

·               SMS messages is insecure and therefore, we don’t typically use it for transactional services in developed countries.  It is however used in some developing countries for transactional services.  Some reasons for this is because that mobile devices used in developing countries are less sophisticated and have poor processing power,  network infrastructure is not capable of other communication protocols, customers cannot afford data plans, or simply because transaction values are considered to be low and thus have low risk.

·               USSD, WAP and HTTPS is more secure, however, has dependencies on network attributes, mobile phone capabilities, and customer data plans.

·               One thing that has demonstrated to help reduce customer security fears, is communicating the security aspects and protocols to customers early on in the product lifecycle.  One panelist mentioned, “If the first SMS alert a customer receives is about fraud, they are going to think it is fraud.”

Overall, I had a lot of fun and gained valuable experience.  The one thing that was memorable for me was just to be able to discuss different viewpoints with industry leaders that have global experience.  Hopefully, Mobile Money Canada was successful in raising awareness for Canadian business. 

Posted on: Friday, November 13, 2009