The website of Alex Kinch, live from London
Posts tagged SMS
Infotechnology Solutions Chooses Clickatell to Deliver Text Banking; 15 Million Messages to be Sent per Month, Expected to Grow
May 5th
As banks around the world continue to benefit from interactive text alerts to reduce fraud, reduce call center costs, and ultimately increase revenue, Infotechnology Solutions has chosen Clickatell to offer interactive text alerts to banking customers in Nigeria – one of the fastest growing African economies. Banks can offer customers real time SMS alerts with every transaction, giving customers immediate knowledge of account movement on their cards. Using Infotechnology’s new solution, named MoneyGuard, customers have the ability to immediately respond to alerts on transactions considered fraudulent.
It takes an average of two weeks after a “stop” request is made before a card is blocked – and it only takes a few hours to empty an account. With MoneyGuard powered by Clickatell SMS, it takes only minutes to effectively block a card. This solution arms cardholders with the ability to respond interactively and in real-time. Moneyguard was co-developed by Transec Pty Ltd from Australia, F12 from Hungary and InfoTechnology from Nigeria, and has proven success in countries like Hungary where card fraud has been reduced to 0.22%, one of the lowest in the world.
“Banking customers automatically receive text alerts on transactions and can determine immediately if the transaction was authorized by the account holder. If it is considered fraudulent, customers can immediately respond by sending an SMS to stop the payment. Imagine the vast reduction in fraud by combining the freedom of mobile phones and the immediacy of text messaging,” commented Abiodun Adesina, CEO of Tripplea Group, Inc; Infotechnology’s holding company. “Having an established track record among the strongest global financial companies, Clickatell came highly recommended by financial and mobile experts from around the world. With the ability to send more than 15 million messages per month, our banking customers are pleased with the speed and quality of this innovative real-time solution during the pilot recently concluded by several banks in the country.”
Mobile banking is fast becoming a greater contributor to the economy as mobile payments drive additional subscribers to mobile providers. Pyramid Research identifies Nigeria as the largest and fastest growing market on the African continent and has over 61 million of the 4 billion global GSM lines. In 2008, Nigeria’s mobile market experienced a CAGR of over 5.7% ranking them as one of the top 10 mobile countries in the world.
“Mobility is driving economic, financial and social change throughout the world, especially in emerging markets like Africa,” said Pieter de Villiers, Clickatell CEO. “With continued shifts in the global economic system, people want even more direct involvement in and control over their finances. We look forward to working with Infotechnology’s banking customers and further participate in the tremendous growth as leading banks continue to deploy text banking.”
Clickatell is attending the Banking and Technologies West Africa Conference this week at Muson Centre, Lagos, Nigeria.
EU forces operators to cap roaming charges – again
Apr 22nd
Amongst all the doom and gloom, consumers will have something to be happy about from this July – as Euro MPs today voted overwhemingly to cut the cost of data and SMS roaming charges.
In a 646 for and 22 against vote, sending a text whilst roaming in Europe will now fall to a maximum of 11 euro cents (10p), data charges will be capped at 1 euro per megabyte, and voice charges will fall again – from an already capped maximum of 46 euro cents per minute to 43 euro cents.
via BBC NEWS | World | Europe | EU forces big mobile price cuts.
Anam bring Smart SMS to Estonia and Cambodia
Apr 16th
Irish messaging specialists Anam have announced it is further extending its Smart Services Applications for SMS across the globe by providing two leading operators with the ability to deploy its solutions.
The deals with the unnamed operators in Cambodia and Estonia come after Anam’s recent announcement during Mobile World Congress in February that it had signed up three new operators in Taiwan, Vietnam and Ireland to its Smart Services Applications for SMS. These multiple new deals signify the global recognition Anam is receiving for its products and services.
The services that the operators can now offer their customers by using Anam’s Smart Services include SMS Money Transfer, the ability for subscribers to send money to a friend or colleague through a simple SMS; Messaging Plus, which provides email-like functionality for SMS; as well as Parental Control, a service recently adopted by Telenor to provide an anti-bully filter on its network.
“These deals stress the value and importance of our Smart Services solutions,” said Jote Bassi, VP Global Sales and Marketing at Anam. “They also highlight the dedication of our worldwide team and support staff as even more international operators are now successfully using our technology to offer new services to their subscribers.”
“Once again these major operators have turned to Anam to provide the services that will be key in differentiating them from their competitors,” said Gerry McKenna, CEO of Anam. “Our Smart Services solutions are creating increased revenues for operators around the globe, giving them the cutting edge to be successful in an increasingly competitive world.”
Anam also recently announced a new pricing model for its SMS infrastructure products that eliminates traffic licence fees for SMS. The move frees up operators from the worry and cost of buying additional licences as SMS traffic volumes increase, allowing them to simply and easily introduce more SMS based services. Operators can create more revenue generating, SMS-borne services with confidence.
Dubai SMS-enable their courts
Apr 14th
Interesting news from the Middle East. The Dubai Public Prosecution (DPP) have launched a new SMS service that allows interested parties to find out details of specific cases.
All you have to do is send a text to the DPP’s number with some details – like case type, case number, and year, and for the equivalent of around 10p a text you’ll get the details sent back to your phone.
“This move is the beginning of a new phase in the provision of judicial services in view of its role in facilitating legal procedures, reducing the time taken and minimizing general costs, which contribute to strengthening the national economy and promoting social development in Dubai and the UAE in general” commented Isam Isa Al Humaidan, Dubai’s Attorney General on the service.
In case you happen to be in Dubai and fancy giving the service a whirl, here’s the instructions (PDF).
via SMS updates now available for Dubai court cases – Technology – ArabianBusiness.com.
Reallymoving.com launches leads by text
Apr 6th
Reallymoving.com the leading comparison site for home movers has launched a new service for its partners. From today, reallymoving.com partners – removals firms, chartered surveyors, Home Information Pack Providers, Domestic Energy Assessors (who provide Energy Performance Certificates) and Home Report providers in Scotland – can opt to receive their leads instantly by text from reallymoving.com as well as by email.
Reallymoving.com is the market leader in instant quotes for all services required when moving home; conveyancing fees, house surveys, house removals, Home Information Packs, EPCs and Home Reports. This new text based lead system means that reallymoving partners who are out on the road can respond quickly and more efficiently to enquiries for their services.
This service will be of particular advantage to building surveyors, domestic energy assessors and removals firms, many of whom are run from small offices without continual office support.
Partners can log into their administration pages and simply opt in and opt out of the service, so they do not need to pay for text leads when they are at their desks, but can be assured they will not miss opportunities whilst they are on the road.
Rosemary Rogers, Marketing Manager of reallymoving.com, commented: “It is essential that every lead we generate is followed up as efficiently as possible by our partners. This will enable some of the smaller companies out on the road to act quickly and convert the leads. The firms that respond quickly to open a dialogue with potential customers are noticeably those that convert the most leads.”
Lebara offers free texts and calls during April
Apr 1st
Lebara SIM
If you’ve a Lebara Mobile customer in the UK, here’s a little ray of financial sunshine amongst all the doom and gloom of the credit crunch.
During April Lebara UK customers can phone other Lebara customers for free for the first 15 minutes, and text each other for free too.
According to Lebara COO Tim Wort, “This fantastic promotion is genuinely different to those offered by other companies. Lebara Mobile customers can make calls and send texts to other Lebara customers within the UK free of charge, with no connection fee. I’m sure our customers will appreciate a little extra help in keeping their costs down.”
Text donations bring £7.8M to Comic Relief 2009
Mar 31st
According to New Media Age, £7.8m was raised via SMS donations for this year’s Comic Relief Red Nose Day charity event.
The service, which ran from 27th February until the closure of the event itself in the early hours of 14th March, was managed by mobile agencies MIG and Buongiorno, and generated 4.75m mobile interactions over the period.
Where charity donations via SMS normally go wrong is deductions: the operators take a large chunk, as do the government with VAT charges. However this time both were waived, allowing the charity to receive the full amount of each £1 or £5 donation.
Why I banned my kids from texting
Mar 31st
Whilst nearly 25% of parents in Wales would quite happily give their ten year old a mobile, one mother in North Carolina decided to ban her 14 and 11 year olds from texting.
Text messaging is a dominant form of teenage communication, but reports of cyber bullying and texting-related driving accidents have some parents questioning whether to allow their kids to text. North Carolina parent Debbe Geiger writes about the challenges of banning text messaging and whether parents should even try.
via When Dad Banned Text Messaging – Well Blog – NYTimes.com.
Twitter brings back SMS to the UK. Sort of..
Mar 27th
If you’ve been lamenting the loss of SMS support for Twitter here in the UK, you might be pleased with this recent announcement:
Vodafone UK has signed an agreement with Twitter allowing customers to send and receive SMS updates at no additional cost. Sending tweets from your mobile will be part of your normal text messaging bundle with Vodafone—there will be no extra fees. In fact, for the first few weeks, sending tweets won’t even affect your bundle. Receiving tweets via SMS on your mobile is totally free. Vodafone loves Twitter!
But what about the rest of us, who aren’t on Vodafone? In August 2008, Twitter founder Biz Stone was quoted as saying “Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US”. But how much money were they making from us UK folk? The service used an 07624 number, which is allocated to Manx, handled by Tyntec and highly likely gave Twitter a revenue share for each inbound message.
via Twitter Blog: Full SMS Service for Vodafone UK Customers!.
Plus SMS shakes the money tin (again)
Mar 26th
I remember writing about the ups and downs of Plus SMS for MIR back in 2007 – looks like they’re still around and still in the headlines:
Text messaging technology firm Plus SMS is seeking to raise just over $600,000 from a rights issue to shareholders.
The issue price has been set at 0.5 cents per share, a discount to the current 1 cent trading price.
Each investor can invest a maximum $5,000 for 1 million new shares.
According to the article they lost NZ$2.7m for the half year to December 31 2008 (about £1.07m in UK money, or 1.14M Euro), hence the rights issue.
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