Mobile Money takes the Stage at the Mobile World Congress

This year’s Mobile World Congress is just getting started in Barcelona and Mobile Money is taking the stage in a big way.  GSMA has highlighted the theme by dedicating a website and a web channel to the topic, and the news has just begun to flow in.  Just yesterday Visa and Vodafone announced the world’s largest mobile payments partnership, and during the first keynote of the Congress Facebook’s CTO Brett Taylor made mention to how Facebook is working to ensure that “payments on the mobile web can be what it should be….” Facebook has been working on streamlined billing with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, T-Mobile USA, Verizon, Vodafone, KDDI and Softbank.  One thing large scale partnerships such as these reveal is that mobile money is here to stay—but what will it look like?

Some say NFC (Near Frequency Communication) solutions where a consumer can just wave or tap their cellphone at a payment point will dominate the mobile payment space, while others argue that mobile barcode scanning solutions will rule this space.  We won’t get into the nitty gritty of this debate just yet, but be sure to look out for an upcoming blog post where we’ll discuss the differences between NFC and barcode mobile payment solutions in detail.

Whether you’re in Barcelona or at home on your computer, we wanted to make sure that you have access to resources you need to follow the talks and conversation surrounding Mobile Money at this year’s Congress:

Conference Sessions

11:00 – 12:30, Wednesday, February 29 – Keynote 6: Financial Services in a Mobile World

15:45 – 17:15, Wednesday, February 29 – NFC Services Gain Momentum

11:30 – 13:00, Thursday, March 1 – Delivering Innovative Mobile Payment Services

14:30 – 16:00, Thursday, March 1 – Emerging Markets – Where are the Opportunities for Mobile Money?

Exhibitors

The Congress is featuring the following companies in the Mobile Money exhibition area: More Magic Solutions, DMD Mobile, Solacia, QIWI, Paythru, Global Payment and Utiba. Be sure to visit them in exhibition hall 2.1.

Virtual Resources

Mobile Money Live – Mobile Money Videos, Tweets, and News from the MWC

Twitter Feeds: @mobilemoneylive  @gsma

Twitter Hashtags: #MWC12  #MWLTV

We’ll be on Twitter all week posting and chatting, so if you’d like to chat with us or meet up in Barcelona tweet at @Scandit and use the #MWC12 hashtag!