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

The Macroeconomics of Mobile Money (April 2, 2010):  Columbia University Institute for Tele-Information Summit, NYC