LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE MONEY SUMMIT 2011: Asian operator Axiata Group Berhad outlined its progress with four mobile money deployments but warned that raising customer awareness of its offerings remains its biggest challenge.

Andy Chong, senior vice president of the Malaysia-headquartered carrier, highlighted progress to date in its mobile money services currently available in its home market, as well as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

“We are still in the first phase of adoption of all the countries we operate mobile money in,” admitted Chong. “There is still a substantial amount of work to be done – we need to work with regulators to persuade and convince why this is important. And lots of investment is required – building the platform is the easy bit, the real work is in the effort and resources required to train and select the dealers, to get the user understanding what this means. Once we get adoption, then we [can] expand.”

“It’s consumer awareness that remains the barrier to mass-market success, said Chong. “A lot of consumers ask ‘Why do we need a mwallet?’, so we need to find a compelling user case for each market.” He claimed that there is still “much work to be done” in raising awareness of mobile money services, in terms of educating and training consumers.

Finally, Chong offered advice to prospective mobile money service providers: “Don’t always offer the whole range of mobile money services – be specific.”