Comments on: Cell Phone Remittances

By: anwaya

anwaya — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:23:25 +0000

Is it a muted trumpet? In which case, it would have to be Thurn und Taxis.

By: klynn

klynn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:37:32 +0000

EW,

Could this concept be used to “rig” contributions to political campaigns?

By: Hmmm

Hmmm — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:21:50 +0000

Probably nothin‘.

Yes. Although: Illinois… June ‘07… Hastert?

By: marksb

marksb — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:26:07 +0000

Much as I’d like to lay some of this on some US company or group, here’s how it was a few years ago: The European telecoms, and the telecom providers like us, were as busy as spring bees trying to invent ways to extract more money from the wireless customer base. I got to sit in on meetings and discuss over bad Swedish meals (and good Swedish coffee) new patents that allowed all kinds of services to happen using the unique ID contained in the SIM chip on your phone, and the global wireless system. We discussed sending payments, using the GSM system to create credit card transactions and thus enabling small business to use the global financial system in countries with nothing but a GSM network. We saw it as allowing some taxi driver in India or port warehouse in Egypt to do modern business. And the migrant worker sending cash home was part of it.
But of course we never thought about extortion or drug payments. Duh.
My point is that everyone in the mobile business was paying attention. The pressure in the telecoms is very high to find new revenue and get there ahead of your competition.

By: klynn

klynn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:19:10 +0000

More here on Affinity and Trumpet mobile (Trumpet is Affinity):

http://www.paymentsnews.com/

More on their CEO:

http://www.reuters.com/article.....RN20080107

As Chief Executive Officer, Carney to Drive Rapid Adoption of Affinity
Mobile’s MADE Solution Enabling Mobile Money Transfers (mTransfers), Mobile
Payments (mPayments) and Mobile Wallet (mWallet) Services

DALLAS, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Affinity Mobile, a global
provider of mobile financial services, today announces that telecommunications
industry veteran John Carney has joined the organization as chief executive
officer to lead strategic efforts to drive rapid adoption of their Mobile
Application Delivery Enablement (MADE) platform. MADE enables true mWallet,
mTransfer and mPayments capabilities to all sectors that engage in secure
financial transactions such as mobile network operators, retail merchants and
financial institutions.
Prior to joining Affinity Mobile, Carney served as the Senior Vice
President of Sales and Operations for T- Mobile USA, the fourth largest
wireless service provider in the U.S. During his ten years with T-Mobile,
Carney launched prepaid phone service and drove their highly successful retail
and dealer distribution strategy that ultimately led to a distribution
organization that supported 25,000 retail outlets and over $14 billion in
annual revenue. Before T-Mobile, Carney spent 10 years with
telecommunications companies MCI and Mid-com Communications. In addition to
his extensive telecommunications experience and success in sales and
distribution, Carney has deep experience in retail management, supply chain
management, E-commerce, National Retail, B2B and B2C marketing and operations
management.

By: tryggth

tryggth — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:57:40 +0000

Probably nothin‘.

By: skdadl

skdadl — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:51:21 +0000

Fascinating story. I didn’t get it at first, but I think the light is breaking in.

By: Alison

Alison — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:35:33 +0000

Clearly, there is an urgent need for sociologists of finance to explain the construction of this new global market.

Wow! they had been worrying about the emergence of tamer makets, like fish quotas, but ths one has guns and terrorists and explosions.

I see an academic shift in the making…