ProgressSoft’s Michael Wakileh: Mobile Money will overtake cards and cash

Mobile money will eventually overtake cards and cash says Michael Wakileh, CEO of payment solutions giant ProgressSoft. He is part of a high-level line-up of experts who will speak at the upcoming, annual MM Global conference and expo in Dubai from 1-2 November.

Says Mr Wakileh: “mobile money is the first payment instrument and medium that will be able to supersede cards and cash. It will be able to reach each and every person at the most cost-effective way. The benefits to the economy, central banks, FIs, MNOs, businesses and people will be a great driver to quickly adopt this payment instrument.”

Having a bank account as easy as carrying a mobile phone
According to Mr Wakileh, the use of mobile money has diversified immensely. He explains: “to us, mobile money will be used for Person to Person (P2P), Person to Business (P2B), Person to Government (P2G), Bill Payments and Point-of-Sale POS payments, Direct Credits and International Remittances. All these payments shall occur to and from banked and unbanked people.”

He says mobile payments will no longer distinguish between the banked and unbanked, who mobile money transfer was originally aimed at. He continues: “with mobile payments, everybody will be banked. Having a bank account no more requires time, cumbersome paperwork, minimum amount of money and transactions; it is becoming as easy and instantaneous as carrying a mobile phone. Consequently, there will be a fundamental revision of the word “banked” and the word “unbanked” will be eliminated for good.”

Snowball effect of mobile payment revolution
He sees one of the main challenges to the industry today the development of enough systems, solutions and interfaces “to respond to the snowball effect that the mobile payment revolution is having around the globe in all aspects and at all levels.”

What has surprised the ProgressSoft CEO is the “exponential growth of the mobile payment technology and the surrounding tools, services and systems. As well as the remarkable growth of offered solutions and of actual mobile payment transactions. There has also been profound attention from payment councils, institutes and organizations.”

Mr Wakileh will speak about “Rolling out a countrywide mobile payment service” at MM Global on 1 November.

Event dates:
Pre-conference Mobile Money Academy Workshop: 31 October 2011
Post-conference Mobile Money Academy Workshop: 3 November 2011
Conference: 1-2 November 2011

MM Global forms part of the Connected World Forum, which also includes the events, Mobile Life and Mobile Health.

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Mobile Money Global is part of Clarion Events, the UK's largest independent events company with annual turnover of over £150m, drawing upon over 80 years of experience of hosting strategic conferences conferences and seated events across Britain, Europe, North and South America, Africa, Middle East and Asia. Our events, business-to-business and business-to-consumer, serve 15 different market sectors from leisure and entertainment to finance, from retail to gaming and from fine art to energy.

This release was published on openPR.