The conference was notably more low key than previous events in Dubai, but my impression is that the potential to tap into the enormous USA-Mexico remittance flows through the mobile channel is bringing more than just ‘the usual suspects’ to the table.

I decided to speak on the lack of correlation between a project’s budget and its ultimate impact, using our field experiences with unbanked people here in Canada.

The flash movie (with audio) is below:

(1) they are or come from a reliable source; and (2) they are publicly available for free.

While some of these sources may seem self-evident, it is worthwhile actually taking the time to browse through the entire list of publications on their websites, as you can find real gems including a statistic or two that can possible assist you with a payments-related business decision.

1. The Bank for International Settlements (http://www.bis.org/) is an excellent source for research, statistics, and in-depth publications. One of my favorite reports from this site is called Statistics on Payment and Settlement Systems in Selected Countries – Figures for 2008” that was published in December 2009. Prepared by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the Group of Ten Countries. This report presents a variety of interesting payments related statistics on a per country basis with comparative tables at the end. The focus is on developed countries (13 included). Statistical data include items such as settlement media used by banks and non-banks in each country, electronic money institutions, available payment card functionality and indicators of the use of payment instruments.
2. The World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/) currently has 913 reports on payment systems and infrastructure available for free download on its site. This is in addition to the country specific reports and other data and research you can find there. I recommend making this site a permanent feature of your radar screen. Some outstanding reports worth mentioning include:
   • Payment Systems Worldwide: A Snapshot, Outcomes of the Global Payment Systems Survey 2008. This report contains extremely valuable information on payments systems and instruments in over 200 countries. Need to find out what retail systems are prevalent in India or what ATM availability is like on Fiji? You can find it here.
   • General Principals for International Remittance Services – if you’re a remittance provider, this report provides useful insight into the aspects of the remittance business that the World Bank suggests in-country regulators focus on.
   • Remittance Prices Worldwide. This is actually a website in and of itself and not a report (http://remittanceprices.worldbank.org/). Here you can find data on the cost of sending and receiving small remittances from one country to another complete with lists of remittance providers, their fees and the average FX margins that they charge.
3. The International Monetary Fund’s site (www.imf.org) contains some payments related data (including their country specific Financial System Stability and Financial Sector Assessments both containing date on payment systems.
4. Regional organizations such as APEC (www.apec.org), EBRD (www.ebrd.com) often publish region specific payments data and reports on their sites.Central Bank websites are excellent sources of free information concerning aspects of the payments industry in their respective countries. More often than not these sites are in English as well as the local language. Examples include Central Bank of Russia (www.cbr.ru), Banco de Mexico (http://www.banxico.org.mx/sitioIngles/index.html) and the People’s Bank of China (http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/).
5. Local Clearing and Settlement System sites are a good place to browse if you are researching a country’s settlement capabilities or whether you want to know, for instance, if your bank is a member of a particular in-country clearing system. Some examples are MEPS (Malaysian Electronic Payment System) www.meps.com.my, the Korean Financial Telecommunications and Clearing Institute (www.ktfc.or.kr/end), and of course we shouldn’t neglect to mention the Canadian Payments Association (www.cdnpay.ca) or NACHA (www.nacha.org).
6. Last but not least don’t forget to check out professional and industry-related blogs such as the Association for Financial Professional’s “Payments” blog (http://blogs.afponline.org/blog/tag/payments/), Global Treasury News (http://www.gtnews.com/payments/default.cfm), and Payments News (http://www.paymentsnews.com/payments_blogs/index.html).

So we wish you happy information hunting! As you come across new gems during your own research processes, we’d be delighted if you’d care to share them with us.

As most in the payments space are aware, the concept of mobilizing financial services has been around for many years now, and even successfully deployed in some key markets around the world (Safaricom’s M-Pesa service in Kenya being the most notable).  The dramatic uptake in mobile phone usage the past few years, particularly in consumer markets that are largely “unbanked”, has spurred renewed interest on the part of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to investigate the introduction of such services, and has also opened the door to a wide spectrum of suppliers who believe their technology can service the requirements of the industry.  While opinions vary on where we are at in the product lifecycle of mobile financial services to both unbanked and banked demographics, what seems abundantly clear on the supplier side of the industry is that this opportunity is quite possibly the biggest land grab going in the payments space in recent past.  The buzz and interest with this opportunity is reminiscent of the ERP glory days of the late ‘90s when the fear of the Y2K bug was omnipresent, and corporations of all sizes were upgrading their management information systems.     

With the number of technology participants that filled the exhibit hall, each offering the same types of solutions on the surface, I can’t help but think how any MNO embarking upon a solution evaluation process might be challenged with the solution providers to even include in their list of ones to look at.  As most MNOs will realize early on, there is a significant difference between those providers that simply offer a slick mobile application, to those who provide a robust underlying financial services technology platform, to those who bring with them the operational expertise to guide and support the operator in such a capacity once the service is “live”.  The list of viable technology partners out there becomes even more narrow in cases where the financial services model requires sophisticated transaction settlement either between financial service partners (such as partner banks), or other 3^rd party settlement networks. 

These types of solution differentiators also became glaringly apparent in a recent meeting with a large regional MNO.  After spending the best part of a day in a detailed collaborative session on payments with the project team, at the end of it they came to the collective realization that what they are about to embark on has more to do with financial services than it had to do with “mobile specifically”.  As a technology provider that has been delivering payment solutions and infrastructure in the Financial Services industry for as long as hyperWALLET has, it really highlighted the importance and value this background brings to customers who are going down this path for the very first time.