New Product Launches

Crandy launches EU to Africa P2P mobile payments service

Crandy, a division of German m-payments outfit NCS, launched person-to-person mobile payments service that allows its customers within the European Union (EU) to send money to people residing in Africa through their handsets. The new service has been introduced in the Cameroonian city of Doual in collaboration with local service provider Mobile Money Cameroon and Union Bank of Cameroon (UBC). NCS said that this service would be launched in eight other African countries over the next few weeks.

Source: Finextra

MasterCard and Obopay team up for US mobile P2P service

MasterCard has entered into a partnership agreement with Obopay based in California, for providing its US cardholders an on-demand person-to-person (P2P) mobile payments service. This service will be provided through MasterCard's P2P money transfer system MoneySend. This service allows US cardholders to transfer money through any mobile phone.

Chief Emerging Technology officer of MasterCard Worldwide, Art Kranzley said “The power and breadth of the MasterCard network combined with the account relationships of MasterCard issuers and Obopay's mobile payment technology enable us to offer valuable new services for consumers throughout the US, allowing consumers to easily transfer funds to their friends and families.”

Source: Finextra

Saudi bank launches quick money transfer service

The National Commercial Bank (NCB) has introduced ‘Quick Pay’ money transfer service and opened a centre in Jeddah. This new service would enable transfer of cash internationally and securely from transfer centre of funds or via other channels such as ATM, telephone banking and AlAhli Online. Currently, this money transfer service is available to the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Egypt, Indonesia, Nepal and Yemen. This service can also be subscribed to through other banks by using Smart Card Money which will notify the status of the transfer to both sender and recipient through a message. Source: Arab News

InComm launches Poni(R) cards on pre-paid displays

InComm launched Poni Cards, a money remittance card denominated in peso and used for sending money from US to Mexico. The company has obtained exclusive rights for processing and distributing the card throughout North America from American Cash Exchange, Inc., a provider of personal-payments-solutions and creator of Poni(R) Card.

President and CEO of InComm, Brooks Smith said “By delivering this cutting edge remittance technology, InComm's retailer customers will be able to provide the Hispanic community with access, at 145,000 retail locations, to the most convenient remittance option in the world.”

Source: Thomson Reuters

GT Bank introduces International Money Transfer service

Guaranty Trust Bank announced its plans to launch GT Bank International Money Transfer (GTMT) service. This service would be initially offered within the West African sub-region and would enable people of Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana and Sierra Leone send and receive money within the region instantly and securely.

Managing Director of GT Bank (Gambia) Ltd, Lekan Sanusi said “The fixed exchange rate would eliminate the high risk of customers getting huge losses as the exchange rate of the US Dollar changes on daily basis.” He further added that he expected good response due to the presence of a number of people from Nigeria, Sierra Leon and Ghana in The Gambia.

Source: The Point Newspaper