US mobile payments company Obopay has launched Mobile Money for Banks, a program set to allow banks to deploy their own branded mobile money service.

Obopay’s Mobile Money for Banks is designed to enable bank customers to make payments for their purchases, send money from their own bank account using a debit card, send money to family members for emergencies or regularly scheduled payments as well as perform account-to-account transfers, all from a mobile phone.

According to a recent report carried out by Nielsen, smartphones have had a major contribution to this change, since in the US there was a 39 percent year-over-year increase in shipments of smartphones in Q4 of 2009. Moreover, during the same period, Apple’s iPhone shipments have seen a 98 percent increase.

Nevertheless, cash and cheques maintain their position as predominant payment methods, with cash transactions expected to make up over 27 percent of all consumer payment methods by 2012, according to the same report.