Foreign Service:
International m-commerce hits and misses good lessons for U.S.

                                                                                                      By Jim Ross

M-commerce already is de rigueur in many parts of the world. It’s the means by which many people pay for the subway, buy movie tickets and do their banking. Although the United States is making progress, to learn more about m-commerce and see where it has succeeded – and struggled – it’s more illustrative to look abroad, as many other parts of the world are more signi. cantly involved in this technological area than the US.

Japan, South Korea and Singapore have advanced m-commerce systems in place. In Hong Kong alone, “more than 10 million transactions each day are facilitated by NFC (near-field communication) systems,” according to a study from Helen Nierinck, an analyst with global telecoms advisor Analysys.

NFC is a wireless technology that allows the exchange of data between devices. At the simplest level, you can wave your cell phone in front of a soft drink machine, trigger a transfer of money from your bank account to the vendor, then reach in for your soda. Another version of m-commerce is mobile remittance, by which consumers use their cell phones to send money to a relative in another country, or to pay for a pizza they ordered by means of text message, or to make much bigger purchases.

The Asian societies listed above have high mobile phone penetration rates, are quick to embrace new technology, and have a rich tradition of pushing innovation. Also helping: Those markets support only a couple of MNO, and there are strong relationships between banks, telecoms operators and transit companies. Those connections have proven to be crucial in advancing this new technology.

Emerging m-commerce markets include Kenya, the Philippines and South Africa. In those countries, customers can “deposit” money with an agent and send it, by way of text message, to a receiver elsewhere in the country – or around the world. “All this has the potential to give the ‘unbanked’ masses access to financial services, and bring them into the formal economy,” the Economist reported last year. Consumers and providers alike are finding that the mobile phone is making traditional banking infrastructures unnecessary.