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.

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).

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.’

According to mobile reviews and mobile news, Short Message Standard (SMS) is a feature which is standard in almost all mobile handsets. It is available in both the high end as well as the low end mobile handsets. An SMS based service is hosted on an SMS gateway that further connects to the Mobile service providers SMS Centre. As a result, people from across the board can easily be reached using the text-message standard. This has made it one of the most popular technologies used in mobile banking.

How is SMS applied in mobile banking?

Here is an interview with the CEO of Noor Bank, UAE, on their plans to launch banking services to the lower salaried group.

Click here to listen to the audio