Mobile VAS company Comviva has announced a partnership with payments company, MasterCard to launch an open loop Mobile Money partnership program, allowing customers to access major financial services on their mobile phones. The company says that its main focus would be the underbanked, underserved segments in emerging markets and claims that the program is expected to help 2.5 billion customers gain access to these services on their mobile phones. Note that 35% of Comviva’s revenues comes from its mobile payments product Mobiquity, which the company claims has already crossed over 55 deployments, and 490 million subscribers in 38 countries. The service allows mobile users to access financial payment services, and integrates payment, banking, credit card and ATM switches and systems. According to Comviva, it will now work with MasterCard to implement the mobile money program globally, enabling financial transactions like bill payments, remittances and purchase of goods and services at physical and online merchants via mobile phones. Additionally, through the partnership, Comviva and MasterCard also intend to assist mobile network operators and financial institutions in developing and deploying financial services offerings to their customers, including virtual mobile wallets that offer basic services such as mobile top-ups, bill payments and P2P payments within their networks. The announcement comes close on the heels of HDFC partnering with Movida, a JV backed by Visa and the UK based mobile payments solutions provider, Monitise to launch USSD based mobile payments service in India. Telecom operator Airtel also announced the pan-India rollout of its semi-closed mobile wallet service Airtel Money which the company claims to be available in 7,000+ merchant outlets in 300 cities…
