The Mobey Forum was founded in 2000 - almost at the same time that Fundamo was established. Many companies and industry organisations that was founded during those early times, disappeared. There something of a resilience that I sense in the survivors. Now that the industry is starting to take off and that more and more banks are starting to announce their interest in mobile banking it is important to take cognisance of organisations that have been around. Some of the lessons learned and the insights (like good wine) can only be gathered through time.What is refreshing about the Mobey Forum is the changes that have been made in the past few months. I believe this is a direct result of good leadership and expect the Forum to play an important role to make mobile banking mainstream banking business as it should be. Some of the important advances at Mobey Forum are the following:
- Invitation to other players in the ecosystem to join the Forum. Up to recently the Forum was definitely bank-centric, but some of the leading mobile operators as well as solution providers have now also joined.
- Discussion and communication with the GSM Association is also a step in the right direction.
- The development of specific models, but with sufficient emphasis on bank-robust security requirements is also good. In the end mobile banking and payments is about dealing with client's money and the same levels of security available in other channels should also be made available on mobile phones.