About us

What we do

mPay Connect provides strategic, product planning, and business development consulting services to clients interested in providing mobile payments services to their customers. mPay connect is experienced in serving clients with banked and unbanked customers world-wide. We charge for our services as a retainer or by the project, depending on what our clients prefer.

Our corporate headquarters are in San Francisco, CA with affiliates world-wide.

Our objective

From rural villages in Kenya and Tanzania to urban transit stations in Hong Kong and South Korea, mobile payments adoption is transforming how people interact with money. Our belief is that the ubiquity of mobile devices, coupled with electronic money movement, will change the landscape of financial services. This change will positively impact economies, businesses, and the livelihood of people in fundamental ways. To that end, we seek to bridge the gap between efforts in emerging and developed markets / banked and unbanked consumers, by connecting ideas, businesses, and people globally to drive mobile payments efforts forward.

Our background

Menekse Gencer founded mPay Connect, a consulting service for clients seeking to launch mobile payments. Her consulting service advises financial institutions, mobile network operators, and third party platforms on market assessment, go-to-market strategy, product design, business development, and implementation. Her market expertise extends from North America to emerging markets such as Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to founding mPay Connect, Menekse led PayPal Mobile’s Business Development efforts in North America for two years during which time she closed PayPal’s first mobile network operator deal to launch PayPal Send Money on Sprint’s mobile wallet. She also led all aspects of PayPal Mobile Checkout's pilot.

Menekse has an MBA from Wharton and a BA in Economics from Harvard University and was previously featured on the cover of Fortune Small Business Magazine for her innovative startup. She is the founder of the Mobile Payments Series(TM) initiative which hosts panel discussions and networking events for professionals in the mobile money industry and provides an online forum for mobile payments discussions with her LinkedIn Group: Mobile Payments Series - mPay Connect. She is a recognized expert in this field and has lectured on mobile money at events for Harvard Business School, Wharton MBA, and Columbia Business School. She is a contributor to U.S. government policy discussions with the Office of Science and Technology around mobile financial services and will participate in the World Economic Forum in Africa around Mobile Finance and Economic Development. She is a guest speaker at mobile money conferences in Africa, South Asia, and The Middle East and is a board advisor to several startups in this space. Menekse has 17 years of experience as a consultant and industry leader in high tech, mobile, and financial services.

mPay Connect’s clients include firms seeking to launch mobile payments and companies seeking to leverage mobile payments for their businesses. mPay Connect's roster of clients includes: The United Nations Foundation's mHealth Alliance, The World Economic Forum, IntraHealth, a mobile payments venture in Bangladesh, a prepaid mobile operator in North America, Citigroup/SKTelecom's joint venture in mobile money, EARN, and Wells Fargo. (References are available upon request.)

mPay Connect is experienced in serving clients around the globe who want to offer mobile payments services to their customers.

Mobile Payments Experience

mPay Connect is experienced in serving clients around the globe who want to offer mobile payments services to their customers.

mPay Connect is a board advisor to several organizations including IntraHealth, Frontline SMS: Credit, and Mobile Money Africa.

Specific areas of mobile payments expertise include:

Understanding of key principles for success in developing a new mobile payments system based on PayPal lessons learned
mBanking vs. mPayments: Use of mobile device as a channel for account access and bill payment, as a payment device for customers, and as a POS device for (small) merchants
Online vs. Retail mPayments: Mobile for remote and proximity payments services
Use of additional assets such as retail footprint for agent network for cash in and out
Alternative account designs using PayPal-like model
Money transfer services and Remittances: domestic and international remittances for the unbanked and banked customers
Value-added financial services that can be leveraged using the mobile phone such as transactional credit, loan disbursement and repayment, asset accrual into special savings accounts, etc.
Value chain economics and the role of future services for long term business model (such as data mining for targeted advertising and promotions based on payment transactions combined with mobile-specific data)
Various types of payments: P2P, C2B (retail and online), B2B (replacement of cash in supply chain), B2C and G2C (cash into the system as rebates or income) including rails, flows, and interchange
Open vs. Closed Loop systems, Push vs. Pull systems for funding account
Build, Buy, Partner: Ecosystem participants and knowledge of vendors in build vs buy vs partner decisions
Understanding of regulatory and business requirements for mobile payments setup
Extensive network in mobile payments industry for driving vendor, distribution, and partnership deals globally (See Linked In Group: mPayConnect – Mobile Payments Series)

Our clients:

mPay Connect serves clients from various points in the value chain including banks, alternative payments companies, wireless operators, OEM/Handset manufacturers, mobile technology platforms, and other organizations seeking to use the mobile channel to reach their customer base for payments. Because we work with different industries, we are adept at bridging the gap among the various players to drive mobile payments forward. Sample projects and experience include the following:

MFIs & Banks: South Asian Microfinance Institution, Citigroup & Wells Fargo:

· Designing mobile payments system in Bangladesh

· Developed mobile banking strategic recommendation for Internet Services Group

· Designed product concepts for global transit opportunities around NFC payments and other mobile services

· Designed business requirements and high level blueprint of global cash replacement mobile payments service for Fortune 500 business payments

Alternative FIs: PayPal

· Led PayPal’s mobile business development efforts for North America. Closed key deals with MNOs, mobile wallet platforms, and mobile checkout/search companies.

MNOs: SKTelecom, US-Based Prepaid Wireless Carrier

· Provided strategic input to corporate development group regarding mobile payments investments and acquisition opportunities

· Developed product strategy and proposal for mobile payments offerings to cash-based unbanked customer segment

Other: Non-Profit serving low-income individuals

· Developing mobile product strategy and identifying vendors for executing strategy to enable mobile banking services for underserved customers seeking to grow savings accounts.

mPay Connect Resources

Mobile Payments Series - mPayConnect

Next Mobile Payments Event: September 13 in San Francisco. To learn more, click here.

mPay Connect offers a mobile payments series consisting of live panel events and recorded videos that bring together industry experts to weigh in on hot topics around mobile payments. mPay Connect has hosted panel discussions and presented at Columbia Business School and the Alumni Clubs of Harvard Business School and Wharton MBA.

Linked In Group: Mobile Payments Series - mPayConnect

The goals of the Mobile Payments Series(TM) are:

To educate professionals on topics around mobile payments
To provide networking and a hub for business development
To spur innovation in this industry
To bridge the gap between the US with the rest of the world in this field

Publicly available presentations by mPay Connect are posted on slideshare.

Tech@State Mobile Money Conference (August 2, 2010): U.S. State Department, Washington DC

"Mobile Money: The Foundation to Food Security"

mPay Connect presented at the US Government State Department's Tech@State conference on the innovations and opportunities to leverage mobile money to support food security efforts.

The Macroeconomics of Mobile Money (April 2, 2010): Columbia University, NYC

"Mobile Money: The Catalyst to Jumpstart Emerging Markets"

Menekse Gencer of mPay Connect presented the impact mobile money will have on emerging markets and what forces are driving this impact at Columbia University Institute for Tele-Information.

Event #4: Mobile Payments Series (Feb. 18, 2010) hosted by HBS Club at Merrill Lynch, NYC

"From Kenya to Wallstreet: Mobile Financial Services for the Next Billion Customers"

During this event, Menekse Gencer of mPay Connect presented her perspectives around the globl mobile money industry including target markets, opportunities and complications in launching successful initiatives, and where the market is heading next.

Event #3: Mobile Payments Series (Jan. 7, 2010) at Google in Silicon Valley

"Will mobile payments ever replace cash in the last mile? Where, when, and how?"

mPesa in Kenya has achieved over 8 million users in two years and is viewed as one of the most successful mobile payments case studies. SmartMoney in the Philippines launched their services over nine years ago and has seen over 8 million active users for remote topup, but less than 10,000 for card adoption. With G-Cash, few merchants are accepting mobile payments at their retail stores. In these and other mobile money transfer markets, mobile operators are investing significantly in the cash out agent network or partnering with those who have the network since customers are converting their mobile money transfers back to cash for final use in retail stores and bill payment. For cash-based markets with little to no financial infrastructure, each new ATM cost tens of thousands of dollars and every new agent network may require up to 60% transaction revenues to set up and maintain. If consumers do not adopt electronic (mobile money) forms of payments at retail and for bill payment, the business models of mobile money systems may ultimately not realize the business gains that were expected. The question remains whether, in cash-based markets, mobile payments will be adopted by consumers and merchants for the “last mile” in lieu of cash.

In this event, Menekse Gencer, Founder of mPay Connect Consulting, was the Producer and Moderator for this event. She provided a short presentation to set the stage for the discussion prior to moderating a panel of top-notch executives from both incumbent companies as well as disruptive startups focusing on the last mile of mobile payments. In this panel, we were excited to host

Thor Hauge: the new mobile VP for Western Union
Ben Lyon: an expert on informal economics and microfinance in emerging markets who has now started his own open source mobile payments company; and
Toffene B. Kama: A Harvard Business School graduate who grew up in grew up in Senegal knowing first-hand how cash-based economies work and was inspired to address remittance "last mile" usage with the Willstream initiative.

Event #2: Mobile Payments Series (Oct. 5, 2009) at Google in Silicon Valley

"Is there REALLY a market for mobile payments in the US?"

The U.S. is the #1 country in payments revenues and remittance flows outbound, and has failed to reach any significant commercial success in mobile payments to date compared with emerging markets. Is the U.S. doomed never to reach significant adoption levels of mobile payments? Is the American market cursed by its own success in card and PC penetration or is there a market that has yet to be tapped?

Our esteemed panelists for the event were:

Arjan Schütte, Associate Director, The Center for Financial Services Innovation
Dion Lisle, Executive Vice President, Growth Ventures and Innovation
Dhidha Timona, President, Shaka Mobile
Scott Shaw, President Aliaswire
Gabriel Torres, Vice President of Business Development, Affinity Global Services

Video highlights of the event

Glenbrook Blog of event

Event #1: Mobile Payments Series (Sept. 3, 2009) at Wharton MBA Office in San Francisco

"From Afghanistan to Silicon Valley: Mobile Financial Services for the Next Billion Customers"

Glenbrook blog of the live event

Key Questions that were addressed in this session were:

What are “Mobile Financial Services” and what are the key trends driving this industry?
Why should we care about this industry?
Is this industry additive or transformational? What customer segments does it support? What are the value propositions for these segments?
Who are the main constituents in the value chain? What are the value propositions for each? What models are emerging?
What are the most important initiatives underway today and how developed is this industry?
What are the opportunities and challenges in this area?
From the perspective of investors, what will predict success in serving the base of the pyramid?
What are the challenges in consumer adoption of this emerging technology?
What does experience to date tell us (and not) about how far we can go with mobile financial services?
What’s next?