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Monitise Americas, a joint mobile banking company launched by Monitise Plc. and Metavante Corp., plans to begin offering person-to-person mobile payments in the first quarter of next year, Lisa Stanton, Monitise Americas CEO told CardLine Sunday at the ATMDebit & Prepaid Forum in Chandler, Ariz. Initially, users will be able to transfer money only to other consumers who use mobile banking and payments services from banks on the Monitise system, Stanton says. The transfers will be from account to account, she says. Monitise has signed up about 40 banks and credit unions to use its products and expects to add more by the end of the month, Stanton says. Banks will set the fees for the service, she says. As mobile banking and payments grow, the number of consumers using the services will encourage other financial institutions to offer similar services, Stanton says. "Ubiquity is what is important" to increasing the use of mobile banking and payments, Stanton says. No mobile banking company works with every cellular service provider, which means it is hard to make mobile banking and payments work together on phones using different systems, Stanton says. Compatibility aside, Red Gillen, an analyst with Celent LLC, says he remains skeptical that mobile banking and payments will catch on with consumers. "What is it about a virtual card embedded in your mobile phone that will liberate you to spend more," Gillen says. "You have a card in your wallet–it works."
