Telecompaper

The mobile money market in Western Europe is forecast to increase to EUR 4-5 billion by 2013, according to a new report by Frost & Sullivan. The research examines both the banked and unbanked sectors and categorises mobile money into four areas, namely non-NFC based m-payments, mobile banking, remittance, and NFC based m-payments. In researchers' view, as hardware costs and mass market availability still remain key challenges for the widespread adoption of NFC based m-payments, SMS-based services are expected to drive the growth. To date, much of the success of m-payments comes from servicing the unbanked mobile subscribers. According to this report, the global ratio of mobile phone users to bank accounts is about 4 to 1.5. Researchers identified five primary concerns in the industry, namely security issues, the lack of regulation on mobile transactions, quality of service, limited collaboration between different participants and the high cost of services.