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Obopay lets you send and receive money from your mobile phone anywhere in
India, anytime, instantly. By linking your existing bank account with your
mobile phone, Obopay offers an instant and secure method of transferring money.
Carol L Realini, CEO, Obopay speaks exclusively to Dataquest on Obopays genesis
and India strategies. Excerpts
What are some of the value propositions that Obopay offers?
Obopay started about three years ago. The idea of founding the company came
up when I was traveling in Africa and came across people who were away from
retail banks. Here I thought of a model wherein banking transactions can be done
over mobile phones.
Currently we provide money transfer facility from mobile phones within the
US. Customers have an account tied to the phone where they can spend or transfer
money using the phone. Obopay clients can be downloaded over the air or are
preinstalled on some handsets. These services can also be availed through WAP.
We charge 10 cents for any amount of money transfer. So if someone transfers
money, he or she should not be bothered about which bank or carriers they use.
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What has been the response to your services in the US?
The initial target was the students. But we got good traction from families
across all age groups for borrowing or paying money to each other. We have found
that the service adoption by a group has led to it being popularized virally. I
think mobile phone money transfer is the easiest way to transfer money. The cost
of acquiring customers through the mobile mode is the most cost-effective and
banks are realizing this. In fact, through this consumers are becoming real
marketers for the banks.
What is Obopays India strategy?
We have identified three large emerging markets as part of our global
expansion strategyChina, India, and Mexico. In our regional business plan, we
see India as interesting because it is fast growing and more technology savvy,
with a very large mobile community, and lots of cash. We are excited about
coming to India. We believe that mobile payment would become an important
banking product in India because a large number of people still overwhelmingly
use traditional banking products like ATM cards and cheques. People have cash
but have limited way of transferring them.
We are also actively pursuing and seeing huge business opportunity in money
transfer between US and India. We plan to launch the service in 2008. We are in
talks with multiple banks and telecom service providers in India for launching
this service. We are in the process of customizing services for the Indian
market.
Some earlier attempts at mobile payments failed to take off. What do you
think are the hurdles toward its success?
There are multiple hurdles. The way things work in the US is not allowed in
India. We think there is a huge opportunity for in-country money transfer also.
We are talking to Indian regulators to allow that. Regulations are not going to
change overnight and it will take some time. So we changed our model and offer
mobile-to-mobile payments under the current regulations. Instead of being an
independent money transfer, we offer services through the banks. It is the bank
that offers the service.
Sudesh Prasad
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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