Solid Mobile Phone: Phone banking service for 21 African and Middle East

South African mobile phone operator MTN on Monday said it was
launching a banking service on mobile phones in 21 African and Middle
East countries where access to traditional banks is poor.

"We have launched this service in South Africa in 2005," Dare Okoudjou
of MTN's mobile phone banking department told AFP.

"But it wasn't a full bank account with the mobile phone at the
primary access, it was very focused on key basic services, such as
money transfer," he said of the South African service.

Now MTN is planning to offer a fully-fledged bank account on mobile
phones called MTN MobileMoney which will allow users to pay for
purchases or check balances. A credit card will be optional.

MTN calls the service "a convenient, secure and affordable way for MTN
subscribers to send money, buy airtime and pay bills using their
cellphone".

The service will be extended to the other 20 countries where MTN
operates including Uganda, Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast which
have a combined 90 million mobile phone users.

MTN said it signed a 9.7-million-dollar (7.5-million-euro) deal with
Fundamo, a South African-based specialist provider of enterprise
mobile financial services software.