Huawei is targeting the mobile money market with its announcement of a solution that enables subscribers to access banking, payments and e-commerce via their handset.

The range of services its infrastructure can encompass – from serving the unbanked to NFC-based tap-and-pay – indicates the vendor wants to collar operators in developing markets, as well as those wealthier, western markets.

However, while the vendor is talking up the availability of its Mobile Money solution, it has actually been working on it for some time with Vodafone, a pioneer in the mobile money market with M-Pesa (pictured).

Huawei signed a framework agreement with Vodafone in November 2012 to supply the infrastructure for the operator’s M-Pesa service in 13 subnets. The first commercial launch was in Romania on 31 March 2014.

The vendor said it has been committed for some time to developing mobile financial services and has conducted research of the market’s value to operators.

The vendor references forecasts that by the end of 2016 there will be 448 million mobile money users, with the volume of transactions exceeding 620 billion.