By Heather McLean

Richard Johnson, Monitise group
strategy director, on hot developments
for m-money in the UK.

“We connect people,” says Richard Johnson, Monitise group strategy director. “From the areas of ticketing, to alerts, to location based services, we provide the technology and the connections between all the different players, supporting and building the technical connections.”

Monitise is an enabler of mobile money services, helping banks, mobile operators, retailers and card networks to provide secure mobile money services to their customers.

It has been in the UK for the last three years, and now works with several major banks in the British market, says Johnson. It also supports over 200 banks in North America, has a joint venture with Visa Inc, its largest single shareholder with 14% of the company, in India, and recently announced a joint venture in Asia Pacific with Jetco in Hong Kong. Additionally, it has a pilot in Nigeria and is working in Indonesia.

“So we have ventures in each of the key geographies,” notes Johnson. “We now have over three million end users taking advantage of our services, over 250 banks using our products, and over 150 million transactions per annum go over our platform.”

The company enables text communications between banks and consumers, helps mobile operators and retailers develop iPhone and Android apps, aids with proximity payments, and also provides mobile wallets for the unbanked covering developing, emerging and hybrid markets.

Monitise’s technology, Globe Platform, manages these services, from consumer registration, to the app development, to how these systems are controlled and maintained.

“We don’t just sell a bit of software;
we run these services on behalf of our
partners as a fully managed service,
or hosted on-premise offering. It’s
not just a case of selling a bit of
software to someone and walking away,”
Johnson adds.

An exciting new development for Monitise is the Mobile Money Network, a joint venture between Monitise, Best Buy Europe and Carphone Warehouse founder, Charles Dunstone. The vision is to bring together the best in mobile payments, marketing and banking innovations, putting the mobile device at the heart of the consumer shopping experience.

In March, Sir Stuart Rose was appointed non-executive chairman at Mobile Money Network. With the help of Dunston and Rose’s connections, Mobile Money Network is talking to 17 of the top 20 retailers in the UK and is set to launch its first mobile money service, called Simply Tap, later this year.

Through this retail project, consumers will go through a one-off registration process that securely captures personal details, such as debit or credit card numbers and preferred delivery address. After registering, when a consumer sees a product they want in store, online or in any advert, they simply need to type the product code in to the Simply Tap service through the mobile app, or send it via SMS, and the product is then paid for and delivered using the saved details.

“This is going to be great for consumers and advertisers,” states Johnson. You’ll be able to respond immediately to an advert to have a one-click experience for a purchase, rather than try and remember what you’ve seen, and maybe get on your computer when you get home to buy it.

“It’s only when you network all these things together that this mobile money thing will get going. We’re bridging the gap from banking to mobile, and now to commerce. It’s really beginning to come together now. The technology has been in the background for the last few years, with lots of important infrastructure development going on. Over the next few years, we will see much more development, and finally, usage of this technology,” he concludes.