Mobile Money Transfer

Mobile money transfer enables consumers to send money via their mobile phone to other people or businesses.

This can be done using a dedicated mobile or web application interface, or using an SMS or USSD message.

This person to person money transfer can be national or even international, whereby emigrants can send money to their family members in their home country. The remittance by emigrants to their home constitutes the second largest financial inflow to most emerging countries. According to the World Bank the total transfer to emerging countries reaches more than US$300 billion (2008) and exceeds the funds transferred by international aid programs. Moreover remittance increases by almost 20% per year.

Mobile operators are ideally positioned to provide these mobile money transfer services to their customers. The current price for transferring the typical smaller remittance amounts is very high, leaving space for a mobile service provider in a developing country to leverage its wide-spread network of distribution points as cash collection/drop points to provide significant efficiencies compared to existing transfer costs.