Mobile Money Ventures Tests Android Platform

Mobile Money Ventures (MMV), a joint venture between Citi (New York) and South Korea's S.K. Telecom, announced that its mobile financial services solution is now available for the new Android mobile platform. Android is the brainchild of Google and the Open Handset Alliance and offers a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.

"We did this to show our differentiation in being a customizable, customer-centric, secure mobile banking platform," explains Steve Kietz CEO of Mobile Money Ventures, and EVP of Growth Ventures and Innovation for Citi's Global Consumer Group. "We took the alpha version of our mobile banking software and created a demo that ran on Android."

Although no U.S. phones are capable of running Android yet, Kietz says MMV was able to load it onto a Taiwanese phone. "We loaded our software and proved that Android is not vaporware and the technological competency of MMV. We showed that if we can take on the complexity of Android that we can certainly meet any banks' user experience requirements."

Among MMV's Android-compatible features are: banking, account management, payments, stock monitoring, and a feature that allows users to track deals and rewards.

MMV is in the midst of growing its business globally, starting primarily in Asia. The first installation is taking place in Hong Kong and there are plans in the works in the U.S. market as well. Kietz hopes these announcements to be official by Jan. 2009, when the Citi spin-off is due to become an independent company.

MMV developed a mobile platform that is designed to be carrier and handset agnostic. The company functions as an m-banking software-as-a-service provider offering a full suite of customizable, secure mobile financial services solutions.