Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A bank account in MMA

May sound funny to have a bank account of yours in MMA. Maybe it does not make sense. If so why does it make sense for MMA to be involved actively in the Mobile Banking project. All the while I thought they were the regulators. For me it's the same as TAM providing telecom services.

I have been told the project is about $7.7 million. MMA is going to invest on the infrastructure and run this operation. I assume that is the case. In my point of view this should be the responsibility of the Banks and the Mobile Network Operators. Now we maybe replicating the same infrastructures that is already existing on the both sides. I feel it's a waste of money for MMA to do this and going beyond what they really should be doing.

Maybe MMA has a good justification for this, but at this point I don't understand. Maybe someone would want to enlighten me on this.

"As part of the project, CGAP will offer a parallel funding of $1.5 million to establish a regulatory framework for mobile banking." - tmcnet

Read more on the Maldives Interoperable Payments System (MIPS)

The project has good objective, however I don't fully agree with the deployment method where MMA controls the infrastructures for this. MMA should be the regulator not the implementer or the investor.

6 comments:

Kambalhi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chopey said...

Does this only apply when it comes to Mobiles? How abt the Point of Sales terminals at all the outlets and the ATM's?.

MN said...

Even though I'm against the idea (because I've seen how Maldivians implement IT projects [e-Government, anyone?] IF done properly I think this could be useful.

For a population scattered over 200 island, we only have a half dozen (or a dozen) banks in the country. Such a system can tackle many inconveniences.

I'm still doubtful about this though. Let's hope for the best.

chopey said...

naseeh, I too agree. However the question is the way it's being implemented and who is implementing it. No question mobile banking/commerce is a good thing. I fully support the idea.

Dhicritic said...

It says in your qoute "to establish a regulatory framework for mobile banking". What I understood from this is that MMA is going to invest on regulatory infrastructure to establish and enhance the regulatory process over this new service. I expect MMA would require a sophisticated mechanism to supervise and regulate the mobile banking activities. So may be they are trying to build up the infrastructures that are required to regulate the mobile banking activities. However I'm not sure what exactly they are going to do given that anything is possible in Maldives, even that being MMA offering retail banking activities.

Kambalhi said...

The interoperable payments system has an EFTPOS component which will facilitate ATM network reciprocity meaning you will be able to use any locally issued card at any POS or ATM terminal.