Disqus
I haven’t arrived at the very beginning of the conference. It was 11:40 and I just came in to listen to Mung-Ki Woo, Vice President of Payment and Contactless at Orange/France Telecom Group.
Here’s the recap of what he said:
- First he presented Orange markets and differences of Europe and Africa, pointing out that in Africa there’s no infrastructure on place and most of transactions are cash transactions.
- Then he talked about Africa. Orange first launched mobile payment service called Orange Money in Ivory Coast in 2008. This year, they plan to bring the service in Senegal and Mali.
- He also pointed out that this is one of rare cases where new service is introduced in Africa, first — not in Europe or U.S. Along with its experts from Europe (France, I guess), they also hired local talent for Orange Money launches in Africa.
- Mobile payments bring benefits to all parties involved, as it’s basically a new business. Banks, operators, users, and even the government will benefit.
- In Europe the situation is completely different. The trick is to offer contactless payment services, which BTW already works in Japan.
- Many trials have been conducted with most of them proved a success.
- However, it’s not just the operators that need to adopt to contactless payments, but a whole ecosystem comprising of banks, merchants, and other parties.
- Orange’s first focus is on something everyone will use – public transport tickets.
- Nice in France will be the first town to get contactless payments service, compliments of Orange, in spring of 2010.
And that’s about all I heard there. Next comes the panel…
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
