We had another great and informative MobileMonday Austin last night – the topic was Mobile Banking and Payments.

We started the night with some food, followed by industry metrics on mobile commerce, banking and payment courtesy of David Gill of Telephia. Great data that shows that interest on mobile banking and payments is increasing and will continue to increase, especially in the age groups 18-24, followed by 25-36 years old. Another interesting metric (Europe) was that Telecom Italia subscribers are the highest over-indexed demographic when it comes to mobile financial and banking services, followed by T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange, then O2 (in that order).

Next we had Awelle Ndili of MShift who spoke about mobile banking, past, present, future, as well as issues and challenges; he also covered their mobile banking product. MShift has been around since 1999, and truly is the biggest mobile banking player you’ve never heard of — I find pretty amazing how quiet they have been, but how successful they are! As I recently read on the Mobile Monday and Banking blog:


“the San Jose-based MShift has 32 clients live, 5 banks and 27 credit unions, many deployed through MShift’s relationship with online banking platform provider, Digital Insight, now a unit of Intuit. Only 5 clients have been deployed prior to 2004. More than half (19) launched in the past 12 months, with 8 launching in December 2006 alone.”

…impressive is how they survived throughout the bubble burst of early 2000, and very smart how they accomplished that, as during those hard times they shifted towards the Japanese market, deploying, gaining customers and lots experience, then returning to the United States (San Jose). It was very nice to meet Awelle.

Next, we covered “The Future of Payments”, by truly yours, me, of eZee. The future of mobile payments begins in 2007…

…good set of presentations with good interactions.

The venue was great — I want to thank Amplify, for sponsoring our event last night; we really enjoyed it. Amplify is ahead of many other banks, including large ones, when it comes to mobile banking — they are early adopters who understand that offering extra convenience improves the overall customer experience. And thanks to the Austin Wireless Alliance for helping me with the logistical aspects of the event…

And thanks to the attendees from AWA, Bootstrap Austin, the Java Users group, MobileMonday, and other…

Please note that there will be no MobileMonday Austin event on July, and we will re-group more likely in August.

MobileMonday is a global community of mobile professionals and enthusiasts. The open community promotes mobile technologies, industry and research, and fosters cooperation among individuals, the industry and academia. In Central Texas, MobileMonday works in partnership with the Austin Wireless Alliance.

Join the MobileMonday Austin mailing list, for related announcements, discussions and news.

Sponsor MobileMonday Austin!
If you would like to sponsor a Mobile Monday Austin event, please contact C. Enrique Ortiz at eortiz[at]mobilemondayaustin[dot]com. Sponsorship typically entails a conference room for 50-100 people, plus drinks and appetizers for the attendees. Sponsoring an event will expose your company to Austin’s best mobile and wireless technologists, while helping keep Mobile Monday a free event…

ceo