Mobile money needs collaboration

At the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress being held in Hong Kong, Hyunmi Yang of South Korean telecoms operator, KT said the mobile money sector needs greater collaboration between industry and government, improved merchant infrastructure and increased user acceptance to succeed.

In an exclusive interview with the Show Daily ahead of her appearance at Mobile Asia Congress this week, Hyunmi Yang, executive VP and CCO at South Korean operator KT said close cooperation is a ‚key success factor‚ for operators, banks and other service providers. An example of this cooperation is the recently-opened NFC zone in Seoul, which has been led by the Korean Communications Commission along with operators and retailers as part of the Grand NFC Korea Alliance vision. ‚When a merchant finds a new revenue stream due to cheaper commission, customer benefit, and more transactions, there is no problem with point of sales infrastructure development and consumer acceptance,‚ Yang said. KT is targeting 50 percent of payments being made by mobile money services by 2015. The operator plans to boost the consumer adoption of mobile money services by working with partners ‚ including merchants, service providers, government agencies and financial companies ‚ to create cost and performance benefits. ‚KT’s infrastructure helps to integrate payment tools and facilitate acceptance with easy, flexible, and user friendly services such as NFC-based remittance, payment, and loyalty programs,‚ Yang said. KT has been offering mobile financial services since 2000 and launched an NFC mobile wallet service in South Korea last year for credit card, membership and coupons. It now has more than 1 million NFC handset subscribers. ‚NFC is one of the most promising solutions for operators to create new customer experiences for mobile payment, money transfer, other mobile commerce transactions,‚ Yang said.

*Article courtesy of Mobile World Live.

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