There are more than 15 million Ugandans with mobile money accounts and mobile phones than bank accounts or even ATM cards. Since the early deployments of MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money in Uganda, the growth in new roll-outs of Mobile Money and Mobile Financial Services (MFS) throughout has remained strong. Verifone Mobile Money – a Verifone Joint Venture – has partnered with MTN and Airtel groups to offer a complete mobile money solution for mobile money providers in Africa, with Airtel Kenya and Ghana being the first to roll-out of this new mobile money service. In Uganda, MTN Uganda will launch way ahead of Airtel in deploying this solution.
Contactless based payments
The Mobile Money market has lacked a convenient and robust solution for mobile money payment acceptance. Perhaps the most interesting service to be rolled out will be contactless NFC (Near Field Communication) based mobile money payments and mobile-based wallets such as Apple Pay. This is the future of mobile money transactions
With just a tap of your phone at the Mobile Money agent’s electronic Point of Sales (ePOS) and Terminals, you can easily pay for goods and carry out other transactions with your existing mobile money account. Verifone Mobile Money has support for multiple identification methods including NFC, NFC Tags, EMV, SmartCard, QR Codes and Beacons (Bluetooth 4.0). Those without NFC capable smartphones will be given NFC stickers that they can be placed at the back of their phones or can place these stickers under the phone’s back cover. The company claims that their service offers international bank level security with integrated reporting and SMS support and integrates the existing mobile or online wallets and the Verifone Point of Sale Terminal with ease.
Image Credit: Verifone Mobile Money
