Earlier this week we announced a multi-country partnership with Société Générale. The partnership starts with the launch of a new service in Senegal offered as “Yoban’tel by Obopay”. It’s the comprehensive service which allows you to transfer money to any other person in Senegal just by sending a text message. It also enables you to pay bills right from your phone providing unprecedented convenience for people . Read about it here.

Why is this announcement important?

As many of you know, Obopay’s goal is to deliver mobile financial services that empower people’s life and work. We are announcing a multi-country partnership to team with SG to bring mobile money services to Africa and beyond. We are especially pleased because a) SG represents such a great partner in delivering mobile money, and b) Africa is such a great market for mobile money. Early implementations of mobile money in Africa, have proven consumer demand and achieved breakthroughs in consumer reach – achieving success beyond traditional brick and mortar banking.

The partnership and new offering holds the promise to bring mobile money services to banked and unbanked people including billions of people around the world. Over 4 Billion phones compared to 1.5 B bank accounts. In some countries in Africa, only 5% of the population has good access to banking service. Our joint offering has the following benefit to consumers:

-          For those that have existing bank accounts it offers greater convenience and utility,

-          And to those that have been unbanked it promises to bring unprecedented new access to financial services

With this offering Obopay now has operating experience with live mobile money service, and experience with the regulatory requirements, and market dynamics, in four very different markets including – the US (as MasterCard MoneySend and as Obopay), India (as Nokia Money), Kenya (as Yu Cash by Obopay) and now Senegal (as Yoban’tel by Obopay). This gives us the robust platform; service offering and expertise needed help our partners expand into new markets very quickly.

How is this different than Obopay in other markets? Mobile Money in other markets?

The service we are launching with SG in Senegal combines many of the best of attributes of our platform.

-          It leverages our US platform and strategy in enabling one of the world’s leading banks to quickly and easily bring bank branded mobile money services that make their accounts the anchor for mobile transactions

-          It leverages our India and Kenya offerings in enabling new channels of distribution for financial services, with agents that will bring new unparalleled reach to people that have traditional not had access to financial services. These people can now sign up for services and load or pick up cash at any of thousands locations through the commercial partnerships that are already a part of the new offering.

-          It leverages our money transfer capabilities from all our offerings, and our bill pay capabilities from our offering in India

-          And it is carrier agnostic, open to all of the people of Senegal, leveraging Obopay technology to make mobile money services available to anyone with a mobile phone, regardless of who they have their phone services or banking relationships with.

-          These capabilities, and the partnerships required to take them to market, have leveraged the flexibility of our platform and service to tailor them to the unique go to market requirements of a new market like Senegal

-          Open ecosystem lead by SG but with participation from leading carriers (Tigo) and commercial partners (Credit Mutuel du Senegal and CanalSat) in the market

What is a “Mixed Model”, as referred to by American Banker?

The American Banker covered our announcement this week in their article titled “Obopay Finds Focus with Mixed Model”. Obopay has always focused on partner ecosystem lead approach in each of the markets that it operates in, and enables its platform to be customized for the specific dynamics of either a developed or a developing market. This may be referred to as a ‘mixed model’.

Obopay enables financial service partners, mobile operators, handset manufactures, and merchants to come together, and brings the best, most complete set of services possible for their designated target market. We are also one of the only mobile money providers with operations in both developed (US) and developing markets (India, Kenya and now Senegal). This enables either financial service providers or mobile partners (or a combination of the two) to offer mobile money service. We are excited to add Societe General, and the other Yoban’tel by Obopay commercial partners, to our list of industry leading partnerships. Other partners include both FIs such as MasterCard and FIS Global, and mobile partners, such as Nokia and Essar (Yu).

Why is Obopay working with SG?

SG is a great partner for us. They have the reach, resources and brand recognition in key markets to make mobile money services happen. They also share our vision of the importance of creating an ecosystem. They are extraordinarily well positioned to offer mobile money services in Senegal and many other countries around the world where they have a strong presence.

Why is SG working with Obopay?

SG evaluated the best approach for offering mobile money services and selected Obopay as its partner. SG selected Obopay due to its extensive experience in working with large financial institutions to meet their needs, and dealing with local regulations, making it easier to provide the service in Senegal, and to quickly extend it into other markets.  The service was easy for Société Générale to deploy, inexpensive, and provided simple integration.

Why Senegal?

Senegal is a market that SG has a strong presence in and is well positioned to offer mobile money services. It has a high penetration rate of mobile phones, but a low penetration rate of bank accounts. SG has a very strong brand recognition and perception in the market. Senegal is also representative of other markets that SG is exploring and views it as a good first market to offer the service as it can extrapolate on its experience in Senegal and gain learnings that will allow it to quickly expend into other markets.

What is next?

Societe Generale Group has an ambition to promote financial services to the greatest number of people around the world. Obopay offers the bank the expertise, robust platform and service that it would need to expand into new markets very quickly. We are actively working on expansion into other markets for this service; however, we are not announcing which specific markets are being targeted at this time. Stay tuned.

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