Western Union and GSM Association sign deal
I am thrilled with this news from Paul Taylor @ The Financial Times New York as I have been following it for quite some time.
One of my first moves into the telephony space was a chain of Western Union/Internet cafes, We still own a couple of these and I am surprised that it has taken Western Union so long to discover the power of the mobile phone.
“The first commercial services based on the commercial and technical framework developed by “GSM Association and Western Union are expected to be rolled out at the beginning of the second quarter of 2008. Mobile operators will be able to offer customers the ability to send and receive low-denomination, high-frequency money transfers via a conventional and regulated system using their handsets.
Thirty-five mobile operators with 800m customers in more than 100 countries have signed up to take part in the GSMA Mobile Money Transfer pilot scheme led by Sunil Mittal, managing director of Bharti Airtel. Other participants include MTN, Orange, Orascom, Smart, Telenor and VimpelCom”
Hopefully Western Union will be able to bring down their transfer fees from a very expensive 13.8% average with the move away from agents and onto the mobile phone.
