GSMA, Western Union team for mobile cash transfers

Mobile operator trade group the GSM Association announced an agreement with money-transfer service Western Union to enable cross-border mobile money transfers. Western Union and the GSMA are at work on a commercial and technical framework that will facilitate sending and receiving low-denomination, high-frequency money transfers via mobile handset. Upon connecting to the Western Union service, operators will be able to use their own mobile wallet software for person-to-person mobile money transfers over Western Union's international remittance network, allowing for both cash-to-mobile and mobile-to-cash transactions. Commercial roll-out is expected to follow in the second quarter of 2008.

According to the GSMA, 35 operators with more than 800 million customers across more than 100 countries are participating in the Mobile Money Transfer program. "Remittances are playing a vital role in the social and economic development of India and many other developing countries," said Sunil Mittal, chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel and a member of the program steering committee. "This initiative will bring down the cost of lower-value and high-frequency mobile remittances considerably and also enable smaller amounts to be transferred in a fast and secure fashion, thereby benefiting millions of people in the developing world."

For more on the GSM Association/Western Union initiative:
- read this release

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