Technology Times Reporter

Lagos: February 9, 2013: mFino, the leading mobile financial services platform company, says it is paving the way for interoperability for Mobile Money in Nigeria and Africa by unlocking the true potential of mobile money through interoperability across various mobile money and bank deployments. 

Mobile Financial Services (MFS) platform has become a key long-term strategy for financial institutions, mobile operators and retailers worldwide says mFino which notes that its M-Commerce Research Team has made deep investments in understanding the current bottlenecks, MFS adoption and usage curves. 

mFino says it has focussed on optimising MFS for several years to build a platform that provides enhanced user experience and increased revenue for business partners. 

“Today, most mobile money deployments are plagued with interoperability issues; they have formed ‘walled gardens’ where a customer affiliated with one operator’s mobile money service is unable to send money electronically to a customer affiliated with another operator’s service. Walled garden strategy restricts growth and potential business opportunities; it is high time that service providers focus on their interoperability strategy with partners such as mFino”, the company says.

Sridhar Obilisetty, CEO of mFino says that, “Interoperability has played a key role in the growth of SMS and Voice markets. Imagine a MTN customer not being able to make a phone call or send an SMS to an Etisalat customer. Embracing a true Interoperability strategy was the key to explosive growth and improved earnings for all service providers. To realise the full potential of mobile money, it is important for mobile operators to recognise Interoperability as a catalyst for wider adoption and growth of mobile money services.”

According to him, “We have an in-depth understanding of the Mobile Money ecosystem and have addressed the needs of Unbanked and Underbanked. With focus on interoperability, we empower our Customers to realise the full potential of mobile money and become leaders in their respective markets.”

Also commenting, Chalapathi Rao, Director of Business Development, mFino adds that, “Mobile Money has taken off very well in the region and we are pleased to serve the market with our best in breed solutions. We thank our customers in the Nigerian Market for making us an integral part of their financial inclusion strategy.”

mFino says it helps in bringing synergy through interoperability where interconnections with external parties can create greater value for customers and service providers than a single mobile money service provider can create alone. 

The company notes that interoperability can enable product innovation, various types of interoperability, benefits of interoperability, options to achieve interoperability across mobile payment services and some interoperability use cases as well.

mFino is the world’s first mobile financial services platform that enables the delivery of full spectrum of financial services to meet the current and future needs of financial institutions, mobile operators, distributors and retailers. The company is focused on serving the banked, unbanked as well as the under-banked and making it profitable for the service providers with the best in breed transaction engine.

The company’s MFS platform for Mobile Money enables customers to make remittances, retail purchases, merchant payments, issue digital vouchers, branchless banking, agent banking, bill payments, airtime top-ups, send invoices, payroll management and much more.