HONG KONG, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Microsoft Corp. and M-Com today
announced a solution offering that provides banks and payment processors with
industry-leading mobile payments functionality — creating more opportunities
for banks to offer mobile payments services to their customers and maximize
their revenue opportunities. This solution clearly demonstrates that consumer
choice and deployment flexibility for banks are key to the success of global
mobile payments solutions for the financial services industry. The
announcement was made at Sibos 2009, the industry’s premier global financial
services forum.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

Using Microsoft technologies, M-Com BankAnywhere provides a complete
end-to-end mobile payments solution for the banking industry worldwide. The
comprehensive solution provides best-practice security and risk management
capabilities, ensuring that banks can effectively manage the exposure of their
brands and services in the emerging market for mobile technology. As a fully
integrated solution, it reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the
mobile channel for banks.

A Microsoft Gold Certified Solution Developer, M-Com supports BankAnywhere
across the globe and, in doing so, utilizes Microsoft resources and best
practices in deploying BankAnywhere. The use of standard Microsoft technology,
including Windows and Microsoft SQL Server, as well as Internet Information
Services (IIS), allows enterprise users of BankAnywhere to benefit from
existing industry-standard technology management tools and practices.

“Consumers today have many options and channels, requiring financial services
firms to engage customers through a highly personalized, connected experience
– consistent across all touch points — that builds strong relationships,
creates customer intimacy and boosts loyalty,” said Susan Hauser, vice
president of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft. “Today’s announcement
underscores our efforts to provide multichannel integration that allows
financial institutions to benefit from mobile and new media channels as part
of the overall connected experience. Our alliance with M-Com expands our
partner ecosystem for payments and mobile solutions and further validates our
leadership position as a provider of payment processing platforms.”

Financial institutions, facing declining revenue from traditional credit
cards, are looking to use mobile payments to replace cash-dominated lower
value payments to generate new revenue streams. This is important for banks
and retailers, as cash handling is both expensive and a security risk.

“With the increasing adoption of mobile applications running on smartphones,
the mobile channel can no longer be ignored by banks,” said Red Gillen, senior
analyst at Celent. “Mobile payments continue to be at the top of the list of
applications that will entrench mobile financial services in consumers’ daily
lives, propelling it into the mainstream. As banks look to invest in this
strategic area, vendors that can provide solutions which go beyond simple
mobile banking informational services to address other value-added services
such as bill payment will be the ones that come out on top.”

For most financial institutions, paper-based payment transactions are
expensive to support and offer few opportunities for differentiation. While
the cost metrics associated with processing checks and cash payments vary
substantively across jurisdictions, financial institutions, and payment types,
it is well understood that electronic payments — including those carried out
through mobile phones — have a direct positive impact on for the cost
structures of payers, payees and financial institutions alike.

Global consumer demand also is helping to propel this migration. The growing
ubiquity of mobile phones and their increasing multifunction capabilities make
these devices a compelling candidate for replacing a physical wallet.

“It is clear that consumers in Asia and around the world have an insatiable
demand for mobile financial services, especially payment transactions,” said
Adam Clark, CEO of M-Com. “Banks must engage their customers and prospects in
the mobile channel in the short term to ensure they profit from sustainable
revenues and key customer segments that are adopting these services.”

As prominent examples, Bangkok Bank and KeyBank both recently selected a
mobile financial services solution that leverages the M-Com BankAnywhere
platform. The institutions chose Mobile Money from Fiserv Inc., which was
launched in conjunction with M-Com in September 2008. Fiserv, a partner of
Microsoft and M-Com, is the leading global provider of financial services
technology solutions.

“The uptake of this cutting-edge consumer banking technology demonstrates a
significant shift in how banks across the world connect with their customer,”
said Karen Campbell, executive vice president at Bangkok Bank. “Customers in
Asia are at least as demanding as their counterparts in Europe and the U.S. –
they need the portable banking tools to complement their busy, highly mobile
lifestyles.”

The mobile payment experience should be delivered across multiple mobile
devices, manufacturers and cellular phone carriers to accommodate the personal
preferences of the target audience: the consumer. This is the only way that
choice can be extended across global markets. BankAnywhere on the Microsoft
platform addresses these business imperatives by delivering the following:
— New revenue opportunities from payment and value-added transactions
— Cost elimination through a proven ability to move customers to
lower-cost, self-service channels

— Differentiation and control over the bank’s mobile channel and the
user experience they provide to customers

“We needed a product that would scale to a large number of users and could be
extended to meet the diverse needs of Key’s multiple lines of business and
client segments,” said Allison Landers, senior vice president, Virtual
Banking, KeyBank. “Mobile banking is a strategic opportunity area for banks.
By adopting the M-Com BankAnywhere platform for SMS, we’re providing our
clients a strong first step into mobile banking with a seamless and compelling
user experience.”

Mobile banking services are the best way to open up a mobile-centric
relationship with consumers. Open loop payment mechanisms, choice of payment
execution models, and interoperability across devices are essential to
delivering the optimal experience. With its ecosystem of payments partners,
including M-Com and Fiserv, Microsoft is helping banks through the complexity
and challenges of mobile financial services.

About Microsoft in Financial Services
Microsoft’s Financial Services Group provides software that helps financial
firms transform the customer, employee and operations experience so they can
maximize opportunities for increased market share and profitability. Microsoft
software helps empower people and IT staff within financial firms — and
across key focus areas such as advisor platforms, channel renewal, insurance
value chain, enterprise risk management and compliance, and payments. Through
a combination of Microsoft- and partner-provided solutions, customers enable
their employees to turn data into insight, transform ideas into action and
turn change into opportunity.

More information about Microsoft’s Financial Services Group can be found at
http://www.microsoft.com/financialservices.

About M-Com
Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, M-Com is an international mobile banking and
payments solution provider working with banks and transaction processors in
North America, Australasia, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. M-Com’s core
proposition is centered on delivering world class adoption and revenue metrics
from mobile payment services.

For more information, visit http://www.mcom.co.nz.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software,
services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full
potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

Serge van Dam of M-Com, +1-678-369-0602, serge.vandam@mcom.co.nz; or Wendy
Grover of Microsoft Corp., +1-425-705-7609; or Chanda Gathani of Metia, +44
795 11 63615, chanda.gathani@metia.com, for Microsoft Corp

I recently posted some of my observations on the hook-up of Luup with Deutche Bank (read more here). According to my understanding, Luup discarded their retail focus to hook-up with Deutche Bank to bring their mobile banking solution via the distribution reach of the bank to many countries in the world. Luup must be complimented on their focus on this initiative as this will allow them the best chance of succeeding.
In a similar way, Obopay have now teamed up with Nokia to bring their mobile banking technology to many countries by making use of the retail distribution network (and consumer brand) that Nokia allows them to use. I believe that this hook-up is similar to the Luup initiative and I would expect that Obopay would (over time) relinquish their own retail aspirations. It will also be difficult to develop an enterprise strategy at the same time as developing Nokia Money. It is not clear whether they will also (like Luup) focus exclusively on Nokia as a distribution strategy.
The biggest difference for me is the fact the the Bank is a much stronger distribution (almost retail) brand, whereas Nokia is a very strong product brand. A strategy based on utilising Nokia as a distribution brand would fail I think (with some exceptions like maybe India). It is my experience that Nokia is seldom distributed exclusively through a Nokia channel. Distribution networks in most countries also distribute other handsets. The impact of bundling a Nokia Handset with a Financial service will have to be evaluated carefully as I am sure Nokia cannot afford that their flirting with Money should impact their mainstream business