Microsoft Rides the Mobile Payments Wave

While physical wallets and credit cards aren’t going anywhere, mobile payments are increasingly growing in popularity, and Microsoft is already riding the wave of the next generation of electronic transactions. The Redmond company is offering the underlining technology for a new mobile payment solution from M-Com. Using software including Windows 2000/2003, SQL Server 2000/2005 and Internet Information Services (IIS), M-Com BankAnywhere is a solution designed to allow banks to offer mobile payments functionality to their customers.

“Consumers today have many options and channels, requiring financial services firms to engage customers through a highly personalized, connected experience — consistent across all touch points — that builds strong relationships, creates customer intimacy and boosts loyalty,” revealed Susan Hauser, vice president of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft.

Bangkok Bank and KeyBank are two banks already leveraging M-Com BankAnywhere, via Mobile Money from Fiserv. Karen Campbell, executive vice president at Bangkok Bank, noted that the solution was designed to allow the banking institution to offer services tailored to the mobile lifestyle of its customers.

The “announcement underscores our efforts to provide multichannel integration that allows financial institutions to benefit from mobile and new media channels as part of the overall connected experience. Our alliance with M-Com expands our partner ecosystem for payments and mobile solutions and further validates our leadership position as a provider of payment processing platforms,” Hauser added.

The promise from Microsoft and M-Com is that BankAnywhere is capable of opening up new revenue opportunities for transactions, while also cutting down costs, by allowing customers to take advantage of self-service channels, and enabling banks to differentiate their services and enjoy a high level of control. Adam Clark, CEO of M-Com, underlined the fact that banks must integrate the growing ubiquity of mobile phones into strategies designed to explore additional payment channels.

“It is clear that consumers in Asia and around the world have an insatiable demand for mobile financial services, especially payment transactions,” Clark said. “Banks must engage their customers and prospects in the mobile channel in the short term to ensure they profit from sustainable revenues and key customer segments that are adopting these services.”