Nokia launches 'Money' to bring mobile financial services to millions  

Nokia, the world's largest mobile handset maker has introduced Nokia Money, a new mobile financial service offering consumers with mobile device access to basic financial services.

 

"With more than 4 billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts, global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services such as Nokia Money", said Mary McDowell, executive vice president and chief development officer, Nokia.

 

Nokia Money will enable consumers to send money to another person just by using the person's mobile phone number, as well as to pay merchants for goods and services, pay their utility bills, or recharge their prepaid SIM cards or SIM top-up, the company said. The services can be accessed 24 hours a day from anywhere, meaning savings in travel costs and time, it added.

 

Nokia is building a wide network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can deposit money in or withdraw cash from their accounts.

 

The Nokia Money service will be operated in cooperation with Obopay, a global mobile payment solutions developer, in which Nokia invested in earlier this year. The service is based on Obopay's mobile payment platform, with unique and newly developed mobile elements. Nokia intends the service to be open and interoperable with other payment services as well, the release said.

 

The Nokia Money service will be shown for the first time at Nokia World on the 2nd and 3rd of September at Stuttgart in Germany, and it is planned to be rolled out gradually to selected markets, beginning in early 2010. - Yogesh Sapkale [email protected]