LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE MONEY SUMMIT 2011: Two of the world’s largest banks – Citi and Standard Chartered – shared their perspectives on mobile money during this morning’s keynote session, claiming that their traditional strengths in areas such as trust, security and regulatory compliance means they must continue to play a key role in the emerging mobile money ecosystem.

Dickson Chu (pictured) of US giant Citi acknowledged that banks remain “conservative organisations” and admitted that “most of the great innovations in payments didn’t come from banks.” And he warned that the rapidly evolving mobile money market “must not relegate us to becoming a dumb pipe.”

His solution was to work towards a so-called “hybrid model” that combines the “bank grade” traditional payments model with the new advertising-funded models being rolled out by the likes of Google and Apple.

“It is about players within an ecosystem understanding each other’s roles, but there are business model complexities that need to be solved,” Chu said. “Providing a great user experience, retail distribution and customer service – this is a role for the MNOs. Trust, safety and regulatory compliance – this is something the banks do well. Once these players come together, they will figure out how to co-operate and make money.”

Chu also addressed the age-old issue of which party in the mobile money value chain ‘owns’ the customer. “Who owns the customer? In this new era, it is the customer who owns the customer,” he stated. “Power is shifting to the consumer.”

Meanwhile, Standard Chartered’s Aman Narain outlined progress on the bank’s ‘Breeze’ mobile app, which he said was available on over 700 devices in India alone. “The mobile device is a phenomenal opportunity for us to create exceptional user experiences for people,” he said. “We are learning from the likes of Apple and Google how to make great user experiences. It’s all about making things really simple for our customers.”

Narain said that the bank’s mobile services ranged from simple SMS alerts right through to advanced apps for smartphones. He showed off two new Breeze apps – ‘Wishlist,’ a money saving app (see below) and a new location-based app launched recently in China called ‘Breeze living.’