Established in 2004, Mi-Pay provides a wide range of services including multichannel top up services, international and domestic money transfer, payment fraud and risk management, and mobile banking. The company enables mobile and internet payment services for mobile operators, and financial services providers, such as money transfer bureaus. Mi-Pay is a founding member of the GSMA’s Mobile Money Vendor programme and is an active participant in its Mobile Money for the Unbanked programme. Mi-Pay is also an advisory member of the International Association of Money Transfer Associations.

The Paypers: Mi-Pay provides an extremely diversified range of mobile money services ranging from international and domestic money transfers to mobile banking and payments, top-ups and airtime recharge – to name but a few. Managing such a wide services offering has undoubtedly provided Mi-Pay with a unique understanding of the global mobile money market. Within this context, what would you say are some of Mi-Pay’s strongest selling points as compared to its competitors worldwide?

Norman Frankel: We have five years of ‘hard won’ experience; gained from tackling the operational complexities, not just technical aspects involved in creating viable mobile money services. Providing indemnified services, means that with many clients we take the risk of fraud, non-payment or chargeback. Therefore, we take issues such as security very seriously and have invested in the best payments platforms and developed industry leading anti-fraud processes.

Working closely with both operators and financial service providers, helps us to forge partnerships and aid collaboration between the two – which is vital in bringing mobile money services to market. As markets evolve and come under more pressure from regulation and licensing, Mi-Pay’s ability to implement and run secure, commercially viable, business process driven and compliant financial services across the mobile money portfolio will continue to set-it apart.

The Paypers: Is every component of Mi-Pay’s complex services portfolio bringing equal value to the company? Which of your services have been seen the highest customer demand over the past year, let’s say?

Norman Frankel: The market is currently so dynamic that much has changed in a year. At the beginning of 2009, pure mobile banking / top-up services, aimed at existing bank customers, was the norm. With the financial crisis hitting Western economies, it then went through 360 degrees to focus on ‘banking for the unbanked’ and disenfranchised customers largely in emergent markets. But with these markets taking a longer term approach to regulatory enforcement policies, the market has correctly corrected itself. Today, it is somewhere in the middle – we have moved from ‘service silos’ to integrated portfolios.

This confirms what Mi-Pay realised some time ago - niche specialists simply can’t survive in this type of market. No single mobile financial service is able to generate a significant volume, to justify a financial return. But, by combining the rewards from several services together, such as mixing airtime transfers and top-ups along with financial services, you can create a profitable business model that justifies investment and creates commercial success.

The Paypers: Let’s talk about Mi-Pay’s agent-based domestic money transfer solution. How does it work, and what are some of the main challenges you faced developing and implementing this particular service?

Norman Frankel: Our agent-based person to person mobile money transfer service, which we implemented with a company called Isys and branded Saraf, has been live in Sudan since early 2009 and is the process of rolling out in other countries in the Middle East and Africa. Local money or airtime topup agents use a mobile phone loaded with Mi-Pay’s Java applet to provide a range of financial services to consumers including bill payments, domestic money transfers etc through a cash management service that enables that agent to act as a mobile ATM, processing cash for consumers both ways.

The main challenge lies in the agent network itself - recruiting, retaining, educating and policing it. Mi-Pay’s success has been in creating a business model that is attractive to all parties involved in the chain and which can be tailored to meet the needs of each local market. Another issue is proof of identity, particularly in those countries where there is no formal ID schemes in place. Mi-Pay is currently looking at exploring retail-based federated identity systems as a way to extend third party channels while overcoming some of these issues.

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