Soon, you may be able to throw away your wallet. That's the vision of Nokia (NYSE: NOK), which announced that it will launch a mobile payments service.
The service is called Nokia Money (the platform is based on Obopay, in which Nokia recently made an investment). For the most part, it is geared for simplicity, which is definitely crucial for the consumer market. Essentially, you'll be able to send a payment by using another person's phone number. There will be other helpful features, such as the viewing of account balances in real time.
Actually, it looks like Nokia Money could be a game-changer, especially in emerging markets. Keep in mind that in many countries there are more cell phones than bank accounts (that is, there are 4 billion mobile phones in the world and only 1.6 billion bank accounts). In other words, Nokia Money could be a substitute for a bank. Oh, and it also helps that Nokia has long experience in emerging markets.
With fierce competition from players like Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Nokia has become more aggressive. For example, the company recently announced the launch of a netbook computer, which seems like a good fit. It also looks like we will be seeing other interesting announcements from Nokia in the coming months.
In early trading, shares of Nokia were up 4.6% to $13.20.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-26-2009 @ 2:41PM
Sramana Mitra said...
Here's my story on Obopay, it will give you details about who and what is behind the Nokia payment solution:
http://tinyurl.com/nokiaobopay