MOBILE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS N E W S L E T T E R JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2020 Highlights From Srini’s Desk C O N T E N T S Rise of Digital Banking and Payments in the Middle East 01 Highlights The story of digital banking and payments in the Middle East is a rather interesting one. Although FromSrini’sDesk digital banking and payments in this region had started a little later than most other places, the IntheMedia financial services landscape is rapidly changing. The recent years have seen an unprecedented AnalystMentions increase in the number of digital banking and payments initiatives. A high literacy rate coupled Did You Know? with wide access to smartphones and customers wanting to avoid the hassles of conventional 02 Airtel Money banking has accelerated their growth. Service – Financial Numbers 2019 In GCC countries, UAE has taken lead in digital financial services space with many banks investing in multiple digital initiatives. These range from the launch of digital-only banking platforms to the 03 MFSRoleModels strengthening of the existing net-banking services. CBD Now, an initiative by the Commercial Parul Vashisht Bank of Dubai, is UAE’s first digital bank. This was followed by the launch of Liv. Liv. is a mobile app Tejeshvi Roy that is the ultimate millennials digital proposition. Targeting the same customer segment, we have Mashreq Neo, the full-service digital bank of Mashreq Bank. The collaboration of the Abu Product and Market News Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) with the Fidor Bank has paved the way for Middle East’s first 04 community-based digital bank. Awards Key Events Xpence, is another neo bank, that is offering regions first digital only business account for News from our deployments freelancers, solo entrepreneurs and startups. New deals However, the story of the growth of digital banking and payments in the Middle East does not Product update revolve around the UAE alone. The entire region is abuzz with initiatives on digital banking and NewsDigest payments. Take Oman for example. Bank Muscat, Oman’s largest bank has launched country’s 05 first mobile wallet bmWallet in August 2017. The bmWallet app has more than 10,000 downloads in short time. Bank Meethaq, the Islamic banking arm of Bank Muscat has also launched its own wallet - Meethaq Wallet. Sohar International and telecom operator Omantel have launched eFloos. These services allow customers to load money into mobile wallet using debit card, mobile banking, internet banking or ATM. With their mobile wallet loaded, customers can send money, request money and pay merchants instantly just using recipient’s mobile number. Not just banks, the Central Bank of Oman is also putting its best foot forward to provide an enabling digital payments environment with introduction of mobile payment clearing system MpClear, a first in the GCC region. The MpClear system provides interoperability and unified switching and clearing services between various mobile wallet and banking services operated by different banks in the Sultanate, making transactions across different wallets simpler and convenient for consumers. Bahrain is also making great strides in the field of digital banking and payments. National Bank of Bahrain and Almoayyed International Group has launched Meem, first Sharia-compliant digital bank in the world. This digital initiative is targeted at the corporate population of Bahrain. In terms of popularity, bWallet, provided by financial company AFS and telecom operator Batelco, has emerged as one of the most liked mobile wallets in the kingdom with more than 50,000 installs. Customers can self-register for the bwallet app without having to visit the nearest bank and load it through a debit card, makes the experience truly digital. bwallet supports both domestic and international money transfers. But the most popular use case is merchant payments. bwallet users can use their mobile phone to pay to more than 1200 domestic and global brands by just typing merchant’s mobile number or scanning the QR code generated by merchants on their mobile phone (Dynamic QR Code). The numerous discounts and cash-back that come with bwallet has played an instrumental role in encouraging the service. In Kuwait, the country’s leading bank is focusing on contactless payments. The bank is using host card emulation (HCE) technology and Tokenisation to deliver swift, seamless, secure and convenient contactless mobile payments to it card users. Customers can create a virtual version of the physical card on their mobile phone and can make payments at merchants by just tapping the phone at an NFC POS. Tokenisation converts customers’ card information into a device-specific digital token. Hence, while executing a transaction, a digital token is shared and the customer’s actual card information is masked, thus securing the transaction. This is similar to the digital payment services as seen in the western world. Not just mobile phones, the bank has also launched a service that facilitates contactless payments at merchants using Fitbit devices. Beyond GCC, in Middle Eastern countries where banking penetration is low, mobile money services like AsiaHawala in Iraq and Orange Money in Egypt are bringing a revolution in digital payments. These are comprehensive services serving financial needs of diverse consumer segments. On one hand, mobile money services provides instant anytime anywhere payments for online shopping, eVoucher purchase, transport, airtime and data recharge to millennial and Gen-Z consumers enabling digital revolution. On other hand, they facilitates remittances for unbanked, donations for orphans and financial-aid to the refugees helping them to sustain. For example, In Iraq, over 15 humanitarian organisations like UNHCR, WFP and ICRC have leveraged AsiaHawala mobile money service to provide financial aid digitally to over 200,000 households. Digitizing financial aid disbursement has removed middlemen making these payments timely, secure and corruption free. Countries are developing digital financial infrastructure to accelerate the growth of digital financial services. In Egypt, the Central Bank of Egypt has enabled interoperability between digital financial services in the country widening their reach. The banks and fintechs embracing digital banking and payments are growing continuously leading Middle East towards a cashless society and truly digital economy. INTHE MEDIA Mobile Money: Creating a Cash-Light With government support, banking Africa to Solve the Financial in India jumps from 35 to 80% Inclusion Problem in six years Srini’s and Mohit’s article in The PayTECH Book Kamaljeet’s article in Cantarino Brasileiro ANALYST M E N T I O N S Markets and Markets Orbis Reports Mobile Money Market by Transaction Global Mobile Money Market 2019 | mode (Point of Sale, Mobile Apps, QR codes, Industry Size, Growth Opportunities, Internet Payments, SMS, STK/USSD Payments, Competitive Analysis and Forecast to 2024 Direct Carrier Billing, Mobile Banking), Nature of Payment, Application, Type of Payments, Region - Global Forecast to 2024 DID YOU KNOW? AIRTEL MONEY SERVICE – FINANCIAL NUMBERS 2019 In 2019, Airtel Money Africa earned US$ 295 million in revenues and US$ 138 million in EBIT E B I T D A US$ 143 million R E V E N U E E B I T US$ 295 million US$ 138 million C A P E X US$ 16 million A C T I V E C U S T O M E R S ( 30 DAYS) 16.6 million T R A N S A C T I O N V A L U E US$ 30,236 million MFS ROLE MODELS PARUL VASHISHT “Take ownership, take chances and pay no mind to the fear of failure”, Parul has demonstrated this since the time he has been involved in mobiquity® 5.0 for Orange. Multiple roles, multiple responsibilities and challenges, the journey goes on. He has been the key player in defining the backlog along with the Product Owner and Orange functional architects. In absence of BA, he took up the BA responsibility in addition to the lead role and executed both smoothly. Backlog, Migration, SES, Releases, Testing, Bug fixes, Closures and discussions with Orange in multiple forums, deployments at Orange setup and full support to make things work – He owns it all end to end in PE team. Ownership, Hard Work and Technical Excellence – These are his key strength leading to great results. Parking work items due to dependencies is an easier thing to do but working in mode of “Why not solve it?” is the difficult and challenging thing to do. We could not have delivered Target-1 and Target-2 Step-1 releases to Orange without him. Kudos to the great work done and looking forward to the long way ahead to make G5 Go Live in Orange. TEJESHVI ROY Tejeshvi is an excellent bridge between the functional and technical teams. He always believes in walking the extra mile to complete the task with quality, and this has resulted in a smooth day to day operations and quality outcome of the PreTUPS™ roadmap releases. The way he is leading the PreTUPS™ VMS Revamp project is commendable, and within a short time, he has guided the team on technical as well as functional aspects. His dedication towards roadmap releases always resulted in timely deliveries, and he is always available to help his team beyond his scope of work. In a brief period, he has gained enough understand and knowledge about technical as well as functional aspects of the product, and now he has become a centre point of contact for any technical and functional guidance. Product and Market News Awards Comviva received the ‘Digital Transformation Vendor of the Year’ award at the New Age Banking Awards 2020 in Doha, Qatar Key Events Comviva participated in Comviva was the networking partner at the New Age Banking Summit in Doha, Digital Bank and Insurance Qatar.