M-Com In Venture for Egyptian Mobile Banking and Bill Payments

Atlanta-based mobile commerce solutions provide M-Com has teamed with Egyptian e-bill pay company Fawry to launch a mobile banking and payments service.

Fawry Banking and Payment Technology Services will use the M-Com BankAnywhere platform to enable banks to offer a range of mobile payment, alerting and banking services to their customer base in the Middle Eastern market.

The initial rollout of Fawry Mobile will include bill presentment and payment, top-up services, access to bank account information, and account and risk-based alerts on a multi-lingual basis. There will also be an array of enrollment, billing and customer management options, enabling banks to universally introduce their customers to mobile financial services through their existing banking channels of choice—ATM, online, branch or contact center. The companies say this combination will create a nationwide mobile commerce "eco-system" in which Fawry's bank, merchant and biller clients can participate.

According to M-Com, several banks and billers have signed on for the service, the first of which will be live in September. This marks M-Com's first venture in the developing market. By 2010, it hopes to extend the Egyptian deal to other Middle Eastern countries.