Nokia announced “Nokia Money” back in late August 2009 and with it the promise to deliver a service that would let anyone with a mobile phone send and receive money using nothing more than a text message or phone call. Here we are, several days before the start of July 2011, and the Finnish handset maker has just now announced that Nokia Money is finally coming to market; India only for now. The service works thanks to partnerships with Union Bank of India, Yes Bank, and Obopay, which Nokia invested roughly $70 million in during March 2009. What about devices? The first handset to ship with Nokia Money preloaded will be the X1-01, one of Nokia’s first dual SIM devices, but nearly every phone on the market will support the application. Now we’ve got to wonder: Is it because Stephen Elop is in charge that the strategy for “the next billion” got a much needed swift kick in the ass or was it the intense regulations that financial instituions need to go through that have delayed this project by 22 months? The world may never know!
What we do know is that at some point in the future everyone is going to pay for everything with their mobile phone. In places like India and Africa they may use SMS today, but in a few short years everything will be based on near field communication (NFC) technology. When money becomes digital, and your transaction data is available to you at all times, and most importantly you’re given the option to share said data with third parties, how will that change spending habits? India’s got a rising middle class, America’s got a middle class that’s growing ever more frugal, so it’ll be interesting to see how mobile money will change spending habits, if at all.
[Via: Business Standard]