What exactly is a mobile wallet? How widely have they been deployed?
A mobile wallet (mWallet) is essentially an aggregator of payment instruments. It is a data repository that houses consumer data sufficient to facilitate a financial transaction from a mobile handset, and the applicable intelligence to translate an instruction from a consumer through a mobile handset/bearer/application into a message that a financial institution can use to debit or credit bank accounts or payment instruments. Mobile Wallet includes functionality such as: • Authentication of the consumer • Storage of billing and shipping addresses • Storage of details of bank account, payment card, payment purse or any other payment instrument • Storage of transaction history • Integration to a bank, perhaps through a financial switch, for purchase, payments and transfers A mobile wallet can be held on the SIM or it can be a downloadable application that resides on the handset. Some mobile operators in the Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Norway and other countries have deployed mo
