MobiCash :The universal Payment Solution – Patrick Ngabonziza Gordon
an Interviews by Editor - Mobile Money Africa — October 27, 2009
Give us a brief description of your business – what do you do?
MobiCash was born out of the need to develop a convenient, secure and affordable payment platform that will address the use of our technology to enable people who are not served by financial institutions to start using financial services without having to access them through traditional bank branches. By combining our vast knowledge in various IT domains and the experience of our management team in learning and excelling at new technologies, we were able to devise a realistic business model and plan that utilise the convergence of banking and telecommunications technologies. With MobiCash, every phone becomes like a bank account that is identified by its phone number. Users can easily load, transfer, spend, give or retrieve cash from their phone.
Give an example of how the transaction of your business model works?
MobiCash leverages the ubiquity and power of the standard mobile phone as a payment platform, delivering more customer convenience. MobiCash is able to offer anyone with a cell phone a convenient, simple and easy to use mobile payment and banking at low transaction fees regardless of the device and the mobile network operator he is on. MobiCash turns any cell phone into a Merchant Point of Sale (PoS), giving the merchant the ability to do both Merchant-to-Customer and Customer-to Merchant transactions, opening up business opportunities for a multitude of small businesses and operators. The merchant can sell goods and services as well as take deposits and provide cash back services.
What makes your business concept unique and universal?
The patented technology developed by our partner TagAttitude is the cornerstone of our product development and marketing strategy using any cell phone, over any network! Overview of the technology include: NSDT™ (Near Sound Data Transfer) and Voice Biometrics that works immediately on every phone. Transactions are securely signed with NSDT™ a technology that sends “cryptosounds” through the phone’s audio channel to enable contact-less mobile payment. To add another layer of security our Voice Biometric solution is accomplished by comparing the voiceprint that was created at enrolment to a sample given when the user wants to sign a transaction. Authentication is very fast; it can be completed in 0.5 seconds.
The majority of existing mobile payment solutions rely on technologies such as SMS, USSD, NFC, or STK that suffer from weak security, mobile network operator dependence, requirements for specific handset technology, or inappropriate design for retail transactions. SMS and USSD payment processes are time consuming and ill suited to the retail context and illiterate clients! These weaknesses have hindered the effective deployment of many mobile payment services. This retail context problem is compounded by the fact that SMS and USSD technologies can not be used on a POS and do not offer the possibility of printing a receipt.
The universality of our solution comes from the fact that the functions offered by NSDT™ are identical to NFC and is available on every phone model without any modifications. NFC (near Field Communications) is an emerging standard and there are plans to deploy it in western countries over the coming years. This deployment is expensive as it requires a change in existing phones and the installment of specific Point of Sale (POS) terminals. When NFC is used with mobile phones it is under the control of the MNO s, which detracts from the universality of this technology...MORE
E-commerce to the billions of un-banked mobile phone owners. How?
By Patrick Gordon
What happens when we throw out a lot of today’s assumptions around card payments and e-commerce and assume that the merchant shouldn’t have to store the data at all? What if we never even handed this sensitive information over to the merchant in the first place?
With a few clicks (and an NSDT™ “chirp”) customers can now make purchases online conveniently and in complete security. This new function revolutionizes online shopping by introducing a critical security mechanism and opening e-commerce to the billions of un-banked mobile phone owners.
In addition to the security risks in online card payments, e-commerce’s reliance on the card has resulted in the exclusion of un-banked populations. As the internet continues its expansion into developing countries, a solution allowing un-banked populations to participate in the e-commerce economy is needed. In many countries, even customers who do have payment cards do not have the possibility of using them to make purchases online due to high fraud risks. However, with MobiCash online mobile payments, the risk is eliminated and e-commerce can take place in complete security.
The mobile phone is the key to solving both security and accessibility issues faced by e-commerce. Practically 100% of banked online shoppers own a mobile phone. In addition, over 3 billion mobile phones belong to un-banked individuals. Getting a mobile phone is infinitely simpler than opening a bank account and getting a payment card.
The MobiCash e-commerce system is a secure online payments solution protected by Very Smart Authentication (VSA™), which allows merchant websites to accept payments using MobiCash payment instrument. This solution can be easily integrated into all online commerce systems and websites.
VSA™ is based on Tagattitude’s Near Sound Data Transfer (NSDT™) technology, which transforms any mobile phone into a secure means of making proximity transactions.
With a few clicks (and an NSDT™ “chirp”) customers can now make purchases online conveniently and in complete security. This new function revolutionizes online shopping by introducing a critical security mechanism and opening e-commerce to the billions of un-banked mobile phone owners.
How it works for Online Payment? At checkout, the customer is redirected to the MobiCash Online Payment System server using an SSL link. They arrive on the merchant payment page and simply enter their identifier (typically the mobile phone number) and a secret pass code. MobiCash verifies this account and the pass code and launches a VSA™ authentication procedure towards this phone to sign the transaction.
Unlike online payment systems where shoppers must locate, remember, and enter several pieces of information, when paying with MobiCash all they need to know is their phone number, pass code, and how to answer a phone call. MobiCash online mobile payment solution works instantly on any phone in the world. There is nothing to download on the phone or to modify on the handset. Furthermore, MobiCash is completely independent of the telecom operator. Any phone that can receive a phone call (all phones by definition) can be used to sign e-commerce transactions with MobiCash. This means that there are zero hardware deployment costs no heavy enrollment campaign.
Ecommerce transactions are made 3 times more quickly than with a banking card without compromising security integrity. Even relative to SMS or USSD based mobile authentication solutions, VSA™ is substantially more rapid and convenient. Studies show that 67% of online shoppers abandon the purchase before completing the checkout process.[1] Faster and less tedious transactions will reduce this percentage, thereby contributing to an even more flourishing e-commerce economy.
[1] Statistics of online shopping cart abandonment range from 25-75%. See: http://onlinebusiness.volusion.com/articles/understanding-the-causes-of-shopping-cart-abandonment.
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