mChek on Young Turks (CNBC TV 18) - Bharavi Gade and Navin Thangiah talk about the mChek mobile payment solution with Shereen.

Introduction to the mChek, what mChek’s mobile payments solutions can achieve for extending access to financial services and commerce to the base of the economic pyramid, and how we’re starting to prove that with our Grameen Koota microfinance pilot.

A Dubai police chief has urged banks in the UAE to constantly monitor ATM activity after a gang of four men were arrested - accused of a $60 million fraud operation involving stolen credit card information.

It is alleged they stole the information from nearly 17,000 credit cards and used it in online transactions and to withdraw money from the accounts of the owners, police said on Monday.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) received an initial tip-off in July and after monitoring and collecting evidence, the teams raided the gang’s den and arrested them, UAE daily Gulf News reported on Tuesday.

mChek on Airtel Mobile Money Transfer Advertisements with Vidya Balan and Madhavan. Subtitled in English.

Sign up - www.mchek.com

Telkom Kenya’s mobile service, Orange, expects to have 1.5 million users by the end of next year and the former state-owned landline monopoly should make a profit in 2009, Deputy CEO Peter Reinartz said on Wednesday.

A consortium led by France Telecom bought a 51 percent stake in Telkom Kenya in 2007 with a view to overhauling the company, which had a reputation for high prices and poor services.

“It’s definitely been a challenge because it’s probably fair to say that Telkom Kenya is like an oil tanker, you don’t stop it in one hour,” Reinartz told Reuters in an interview.

Smart Communications is partnering with Roamware, a leading US-based roaming services provider, for the deployment of international mobile financial services.

Smart and Roamware sealed a memorandum of understanding, agreeing to leverage existing network infrastructure, resources, expertise and international reach, to make mobile money transfers available to mobile operators and financial institutions around the world.

The wholly-owned wireless subsidiary of PLDT developed its Smart Services Hub, a global financial and telecommunications services solution, based on the proven capabilities and features of its award winning Smart Money electronic financial services platform.

Latin Americans living in the USA are keen to adopt money transfer using the less traditional method of a mobile phone, according to a survey commissioned by Upaid, the leading mobile payments provider.

During tough economic times, consumers are looking to cost-effective ways of continuing money transfer to friends, family and loved ones. The majority of those questioned (61%) are spending over US$75 a month on fees and commission associated with cross-border payments, with many considering their current method of money transfer “expensive”. Two thirds of those who transfer money via a shop find it expensive, particularly those sending money to Uruguay, Haiti, Belize and Aruba, with a unanimous 100% of respondents thinking transferring money this way was costly. Many more respondents found other methods of transfer more affordable, with less than half believing money transfer via cheque or telephone is expensive (44% and 46% respectively).

Azure Media debuts Zala™ Mobile Money Transfer Application for Blackberry Devices.

Azure Media , the mobile marketing, advertising and strategy firm debuts Zala™ (myzala.com), the first mobile money transfer application developed exclusively for Blackberry® devices at the 2008 Blackberry® Developer’s Conference. Zala™ is the first dual consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer application in the financial services space that leverages the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server (BES) and the BlackBerry® Mobile Data System (BMDS). The tremendous value of the Zala™ application is that it permits secure person-to-person transactions on a unified communication platform, which creates an optimized user experience and equally optimized enterprise deployment, maintenance and security strategy for any organization that is considering mobile banking, bill presentment or payment as a commercial service.

Etisalat presented its latest innovations supporting mobile commerce at the Mobile Money Transfer Conference in Dubai (MMT08).

Rashed Alabbar, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, eBusiness at Etisalat addressed the conference and said:

‘Mobile commerce has many applications for consumers and businesses alike. The ability to use your mobile device to buy products and services is convenient, secure and simple. Given the number of people who now own a SIM-enabled device, it is clear that the future of many industries will require a mobile commerce channel strategy.’