Hold the phone! There’s a jack in the box

Here’s something that just came up at the E-Banking conference yesterday that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s like looking for your keys when they’re sitting in your pocket.

I didn’t mention Austria and mobile commerce in the same breath previously. I should’ve, considering a demo (that could have taken place), showing how you can spend an entire day in the ordinary course of your life (and then some) in Vienna - home to paybox, with nothing more than a cell phone and some underwear. The fact pages have all turned up with price tags, so I can’t provide you any links due to my information sharing policy – free for me so free for you.

Anyway, this provides the answer to the dilemma that’s been worrying me so many days. Regarding how Etisalat, the United Arab Emirates national telecom provider, is going to go through with its plans of m-remittance.

Foreign workers in UAE transferred an estimated US$ 8.1 billion back to their families in 2007, according to paybox. A major portion of this goes to India, followed by all the other Asian countries that make up 80% of the working population. While India didn’t waste any time in setting up connections with Etisalat, the other countries including Philippines, Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal are to follow suit.

Recognised for having the broadest mobile Commerce offering worldwide, paybox has been chosen by leading companies such as Vodafone and o2 in Germany, mobilkom and ONE in Austria, Swisscom, Vodafone Egypt, Maxis Malaysia, Mastercard Int’l, ICSL Nigeria, and Lari Exchange in the UAE. Used by over five million end users and over 15,000 merchants, paybox enterprise solutions for worldwide mobile commerce are deployed across Europe, North and South America, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Which means that the Philippines is now connected to its workers salaries abroad through the paybox strategic partnership with Lari Exchange.

Dr. Asad from Paybox Pakistan was the speaker that sprung out with some daring plans in this regard in the later part of the conference. He’s looking for a settlement bank to partner with and drive ahead having got the nod from the central bank. It seems Dr. Asad has also partnered with M-Net, one of Pakistan’s two major ATM switches, to implement an m-payment solution across the country. Paybox has already had some success with similar plans in Kuwait (coincidentally with a mobile payment solution that also goes by the name M-Net).

It’s a brave new world here though, with legal traps that can scare away most of the competition. So he’s more likely to secure some arrangements with banks round here than amaana, seen lurking around the corner stall with some sharp black-orange contrast tones to get your attention (where did these guys come from?).

However, the real competitors in the m-remittance from UAE to Pakistan are banks like UBL, that already have an established mobile banking setup integrated into its e-banking service (not that it works exactly like you'd wish it does), as well as an international presence in the Gulf region.

So unless Dr. Shah acts fast, or UBL is not interested, we’re likely to see some synergy with UBL and exchange companies in UAE, though paybox is not improbable. Etisalat may have some plans for exclusivity to keep the business within its own share of the telecom industry in Pakistan, which can dramatically improve the market share for ufone if the service is limited to their SIM.

So far it’s been mostly about strategic partnerships to facilitate the end user, but there could always be another jack in the box.