Mobile News

For operators new usage drives new revenue: existing billing relationships can be leveraged to charge for services as well as products purchased via operator networks–an average 9% transaction fee is levied on the fixed internet. Yet the dominant positioning of operators also involves challenges. Despite the significance of operators’ location data, billing relationship and customer database increased competition and liberalisation will hasten the commoditisation of airtime–the network operator as ISP does not guarantee customer ownership and thus operators could be relegated to the role of pipe owner for content delivery. On the other hand, the acquisition of a banking licence and portal provision would provide the missing skills needed to provide full mobile banking services. Current closed models cannot be deemed a viable strategy, yet will persist for as long as initial WAP take-up rates are slow and default home pages on wireless portals remain difficult to change. Furthermore, operators must contend with other value-added service provision such as voice and messaging.

For banks the new market opportunities presented by the internet, both fixed and mobile, in banking and payments require an infrastructure that is extensible in order to accommodate all delivery channels combined with partner offerings such as financial advice applications. Due to the standardised development WAP enables, multi-channel integration is key. The mobile channel helps create a single view of the customer–user customisation and location information creates an opportunity to extend additional services. The combination of these two will enable both online and offline service delivery, using information about the end user, tailored for the individual customer. A real-time service involving user profiles must incorporate the facility to make payments if banks are to remain within the transaction cycle on the mobile channel.