I just returned from the SWIFT Innotribe Mobile Payments Conference in Mumbai.  Topics discussed ranged from interoperability to agency banking to payment channels, and the global nature of the conference helped participants – me especially – think about each topic in a new light.  One topic in particular, the creation of mobile money standards, piqued my interest the most. 

Given that mobile money is following a similar trajectory as the payment card industry, what lessons can we apply to mobile money to expedite its development?  Conference participants identified a need for the following standards: 

• Data Formatting (e.g. the ISO8583 standard in the payment card industry)

• Data Security (e.g. the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI DSS)

• Integration (e.g. real-time web service layers and open APIs – think PayPal X)

• Protocols (e.g. near-field communication, radio frequency identification, near sound data transfer, unstructured supplementary service data, short message service, interactive voice response, etc.) 

Implementing the standards above would take mobile money to the next level.  They would enable third party integrators to connect mobile money systems with banking and enterprise systems, ATM and POS networks, and data aggregation and analytics providers, to name a few.  

As with any industry, the implementation of mobile money standards will be slow and gradual.  The more we begin to think about and champion those standards, however, the better positioned we will all be to leverage and benefit from them. 

To learn more about standards development, check out ISO (International Organization for Standards). 

- Ben Lyon, VP of Business Development