British consumers who want to conduct mobile transactions and P2P payments no longer have to wait for their bank to offer the functionality. A new disintermediator, dubbed MoBank and built by First Direct and Egg bankers Steve Townsend and Dominic Keen, now gives Apple iPhone users a broad range of mobile commerce functionality.
The British-based service leverages customers’ existing bank accounts to let users buy and pay for items and check balances online by using their mobile phone. Subscribers use a PIN to authorize payments from debit or credit cards. MoBank plans to soon allow users to also pay bills, execute P-to-P transactions, transfer money between accounts and receive alerts on important dates, budget tracking and spending.
NTT Europe is providing the hosting platform, while txttrans is providing the transaction fee services technology. Yodlee’s providing current banking services and Portrait’s technology is being used for the CRM platform and database. No banking data, card details or PINs will be stored on the phone itself. The initial availability on iPhone will be followed up by versions for Blackberry and Google Android handsets within the next year. Townsend was formerly innovation and customer services director for Egg, while Keen was the head of venturing at the UK web bank.
